Officials in Kyiv say air defenses destroyed multiple waves of Russian drones targeting the capital during a Russian drone and missile attack overnight, while President Vladimir Putin used a state holiday aimed at asserting Russia's grip on occupied territory to repeat a pledge to achieve his aims in Ukraine.
Serhiy Popko, head of the military administration in Kyiv, said there were no damages after "waves" of incoming attack drones were destroyed over the course of a five-hour air alert in the city that began around 1 a.m. local time on September 30.
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It was the 10th Russian air attack on the Ukrainian capital this month.
The Kyiv regionwide military administration commander, Ruslan Kravchenko, said later that debris from destroyed drones fell in six districts but caused no casualties and only minor damage.
Ukrainian military authorities said four people had died and 37 more had been injured by Russian air strikes over the past 24 hours in the Donetsk, Kherson, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk, and Zaporizhzhya regions.
They said Russia launched 73 attack drones and three missiles overnight in all, and that Ukrainian air defenses downed 67 of the drones and one of the missiles.
In Russia, Putin vowed to achieve his goals in Ukraine in a September 30 video message to coincide with the anniversary of his unilateral declaration in 2022 purporting to annex four Ukrainian regions partly controlled by Russian troops.
The United Nations has passed multiple resolutions confirming Ukraine's territory and sovereignty since Russia invaded and annexed Crimea in 2014 and launched its support of separatists in eastern Ukraine eight years before the full-scale invasion began in February 2022.
"The truth is on our side," Putin said in the message. "All goals set will be achieved."
Unprecedented Western military and other support for Ukraine has continued despite fears of "Ukraine fatigue" among backers and Moscow's persistent efforts to undermine European unity.
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Ukrainian Woman Rescued After Russian Bombing
Ukrainian defenders have prevented Russian forces from fully capturing the four regions in Putin's September 2022 annexation declaration: Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson, and Zaporizhzhya.
In August, Ukrainian troops launched a cross-border incursion into Russia's western Kursk region in what Kyiv has said is an effort to gain a better foothold for peace talks and to bring the war home to Russians.
In his address, Putin repeated Kremlin talking points about the unprovoked invasion including its stated aim of removing a "neo-Nazi dictatorship" and his questioning of Ukrainian nationhood.
He also accused "Western elites" of seeking to make Ukraine a "colony" and of being hostile to "everything Russian."
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Ukrainian Rescuers Record Deadly Russian Drone Attack
After the initial wave of drone attacks on September 30, air-defense forces were against put into action in the Kyiv region shortly before 9 a.m.
The Ukrainian military administrator in the southern port city of Kherson said Russia appears to have been targeting critical infrastructure there overnight, damaging a gas pipeline, an administrative building, and residential buildings.
In the southern Black Sea region of Mykolayiv, military authorities said a Russian attack sparked a fire at a critical infrastructure facility in the Bashtan district.
Mykolayiv military administration head Vitaly Kim also said air-defense forces had destroyed three Russian drones overnight.
The extend of the damage was unclear, as was information about possible casualties.