Ukrainian Air Defenses Destroy 17 Russian Drones, 2 Ballistic Missiles

Ukrainian Air Force announced Thursday that its systems shot down 17, out of 18 drones, in addition to two ballistic missiles launched by Russian forces. Ukrainian Air Defense said in a statement that the drones were launched from the Primorsk-Akhtarsk region and Cape Chuda in the Crimean Peninsula in Russia. "Seventeen one-way attack UAVs were shot down over Mykolaiv, Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, and Khmelnytskyi regions," the statement reads. Two Iskander-M ballistic missiles launched from the Taganrog region were intercepted, Ukrainian news agency (Ukrinform) reported. According to Ukrinform, an air raid alert was previously declared in a number of regions of Ukraine due to the threat of Russian drone attacks. Since the outbreak of the military operation in Ukraine in 2022, conflicting reports have emerged regarding the extent of losses suffered by both sides of the conflict. Each side claims to have inflicted severe losses on the other, but it has been difficult to independently verify the accuracy of this information due to the ongoing fighting. Source: Qatar News Agency