The Russian missile strike that killed more than 40 people in the eastern city of Poltava on Tuesday comes after a difficult few days for Ukraine, in which Moscow appears to have stepped up the tempo of its attacks, resulting in a wave of death and destruction.
At dawn on Aug. 26, residents of Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, and many other cities woke to the sound of a Russian aerial assault. Moscow had launched more than 200 missiles and drones that hit targets in 15 regions of Ukraine. At least seven people were killed.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said that it was one of the largest attacks since Russia’s full-scale invasion began 30 months ago. The strikes knocked out power in some cities, including the capital, continuing a pattern of attacks on the country’s energy infrastructure.
Early the next morning, Russia launched another barrage, and one missile hit a hotel in the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih, killing four people. There was also a smaller round of strikes on Wednesday.
Moscow, which has been conducting aerial assaults on Ukraine every few weeks, gave no reason for the timing of the strikes, but it came weeks after Ukraine launched a surprise incursion into the southern Russian region of Kursk. President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia had vowed a decisive response.
Russia continued to pound urban areas close to the front lines throughout the week. On Wednesday, a Russian attack killed four members of a family in the tiny community of Izmailivka in the Donetsk region, the state prosecutor said. The settlement is a few miles west of Russian lines and close to the city of Pokrovsk, which Moscow is trying to capture.
Most of the missiles and drones were shot down by Ukraine’s air defense systems, the Air Force said. F-16 fighter jets, recently delivered by the country’s allies in NATO, were deployed in that effort, intercepting and shooting down three cruise missiles and a drone.
But on Thursday, the head of Ukraine’s air force, Lt. Gen. Mykola Oleshchuk, announced that one of the jets had crashed in combat during the operation on Monday and its pilot had been killed. He said that the crash, which came as a shock to many Ukrainians so soon after the deployment of the coveted fighter jets, was being investigated.
The following day, Mr. Zelensky announced that Lt. Gen. Oleshchuk had been fired.
Russian fire was also directed at Ukraine’s second largest city, Kharkiv, which is situated within range of Russian artillery and has been repeatedly assaulted since the start of the full scale war.
On Friday, a Russian glide bomb hit a children’s park and a mid-rise apartment block in the city, killing seven people and wounding nearly 60 others, according to the head of the regional military administration, Oleh Syniehubov.
Two days later, Russian forces bombarded residential areas of the city, wounding more than 40 civilians, Ukrainian officials said. At least 10 explosions had rocked the city.
Read More: Russia’s Attack on Poltava Comes After a Week of Strikes in Ukraine
