On September 30th, the skies above Kyiv were lit up as Ukrainian military personnel employed searchlights to look for drones amidst the ongoing conflict. The Ukrainian Air Force reported that Russian forces had unleashed missiles and drones across 11 regions of Ukraine, continuing an unrelenting aerial assault on the country’s front lines for an unprecedented 33 consecutive nights—marking the highest number of drone attacks in a single month since the war began.
According to an Associated Press report, Kyiv’s air defense forces successfully defended against the drone attacks for five hours, with the sounds of explosions and gunfire resonating throughout the night in the capital.
Vitaliy Kim, the governor of Mykolaiv, confirmed that there were no casualties reported in Kyiv or other regions. However, he noted that a “critical infrastructure” facility in his area had caught fire, though he did not elaborate on the specifics.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, there has been an increasing reliance on Shahed drones in their airstrikes against Ukrainian cities, as opposed to more expensive missile strikes. In just September, Russian forces reportedly launched over 1,300 Shahed drones, setting a new monthly record for drone assaults in this ongoing conflict.
In a report by AFP, Russia announced its military’s capture of the eastern Ukrainian village of Nelipivka, marking an advance into areas where Kyiv had previously claimed to have made progress earlier this month.
On the same day, Russian President Vladimir Putin released a video commemorating the second anniversary of Russia’s control over four regions of Ukraine. In his message, he reiterated accusations against the West for allegedly turning Ukraine into a “military base against Russia.”
In 2022, Russia held referendums to annex the territories of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhia—actions that were not recognized by the West. Today, Putin asserted that as the Russia-Ukraine war enters its third year, his government would achieve all the objectives it has set for itself in Ukraine.
