May 29 (UPI) -- Russia hit Kyiv with a record wave of drone and missile attacks with back-to-back raids overnight Monday and then again in a rare afternoon strike.
It marked the 15th and 16th times Russia fired on Ukraine's capital this month as it tries to overwhelm the U.S.-made Patriot defense system protecting it. Ukrainian forces reported, though, that the vast majority of the drones and missiles were shot down before reaching their targets.
However, debris from the takedowns was blamed for injuring one person. Ukrainian general General Valerii Zaluzhnyi said air defenses shot down 37 cruise missiles, 29 Shahed drones and one reconnaissance drone. Police said they believed that "almost all enemy targets were destroyed."
During the daytime attack, Serhii Popko, head of Kyiv city military administration, said defense systems prevented any buildings from being damaged.
The Russian Defense Ministry claimed, though, that long-range missiles did strike Ukrainian airfields, but did not specify where. The strikes hit "command posts and radar posts, as well as aviation equipment, storage facilities with weapons and ammunition of the Armed Forces of Ukraine." Moscow said.
Ukrainian officials reported on Monday that an unnamed military target in the western Khmelnytskyi region was hit with "five aircraft" with a fire breaking out in a fuel warehouse.
Officials said fragments from a downed kamikaze drone in Odesa caused a fire at a port infrastructure while air defenses shot down rockets and drones in the Lviv, Kirovohrad, Poltava and Mykolaiv regions.
