On the night of September 29, Russian forces launched a large-scale combined attack across Ukraine, employing missile systems and hundreds of strike drones of various types. The offensive began the previous evening at 18:00, putting severe strain on air defense systems nationwide. The Ukrainian Air Force promptly deployed all available assets to counter the threat, including aviation, anti-aircraft missile units, electronic warfare systems, and mobile fire groups.

Scale and Geography of the Night Bombardment

According to official military command data, the invaders launched a Zircon (or Oniks) anti-ship missile and two Iskander-M/S-400 ballistic missiles from the Kursk region. In addition, the enemy deployed an unprecedented number of UAVs—152 Shahed strike drones, a significant portion of which (82 units) were jet-powered. Aside from strike units, the deployment of Gerbera drones and Parodiya decoy drones was also recorded. Launches were carried out from various directions, including the Russian cities of Oryol, Millerovo, Kursk, Primorsko-Akhtarsk, as well as temporarily occupied Donetsk and the Crimean locations of Hвардейське (Hvardiiske) and Chauda.

Air Defense Performance Results

Thanks to the coordinated efforts of the defense forces, as of 08:00 AM, 109 air targets were shot down or suppressed by electronic warfare. This list included both launched missiles (Zircon/Oniks and both ballistic missiles) and 106 drones of various modifications. Nevertheless, hits could not be entirely avoided: air attack impacts were recorded at 24 locations, while dangerous debris from intercepted objects fell at another 16 sites, causing damage and fires on the ground.

Contradictory Data

Despite official reports from the Ukrainian Air Force regarding the exact types of weaponry used, initial operational reports from specialized agencies and local authorities showed certain discrepancies in the classification of missile systems and the total number of decoy drones involved. While military experts emphasize the use of rare jet-powered UAV modifications, official summaries often lump them into general statistics with Gerbera and Parodiya drones, complicating rapid damage verification in the first hours after the attack.

Consequences in the Capital and Regions

The most noticeable destruction from falling debris was recorded in Kyiv, particularly in the Pechersk district. There, falling debris caused a non-residential building to catch fire, and a fire also broke out in one of the educational institution's buildings. These strikes continued a series of recent attacks on capital infrastructure: recall that a day earlier, on September 28, a Russian drone hit the building of the National Academy of Sciences in central Kyiv, and on the same day, the Dobrobut medical center came under fire, underlining the ongoing trend of targeting civilian and social infrastructure.