Air Force silent on whether Patriots were operational in latest Russian attack
Ukraine’s Air Force Command wouldn’t say if the country’s recently arrived Patriot air defense batteries saw their first action early on April 28, when Russia launched abarrage of 23 cruise missiles at the country – 21, or 91% of which, were shot down.
Yuriy Ihnat, spokesperson for the Air Force Command, said on Ukrainian national television, said that the Air Force never discloses the type of weaponry that is in operation, or the direction of its aim.
Ihnat said divulging such information would allow Russia to draw conclusions about the location of certain weapons.
However, he added that Patriot systems can effectively target the Kh-101 and Kh-555 cruise missiles that Russia launched against Ukraine.
“They can be brought down with various types of weaponry, including mobile firing groups. Today, two targets were destroyed precisely by the Ground Forces’ air defense systems,” Ihnat said.
On the night of April 28, Russia launched another massive attack on Ukrainian cities, resulting in the shooting down of 11 missiles and 2 UAVs in the Kyiv Oblast.
Ukrainian defenders managed to shoot down 21 out of 23 Russian missiles, according to the Chief of General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, Valeriy Zaluzhnyi.
However, one missile struck an apartment block in Uman, a city in Cherkasy Oblast to the south of the capital Kyiv, with the death toll from that attack already standing at 17 as rescue work continues.
In the southeast of the country, in the city of Dnipro, a young mother and her three-year-old were killed in another Russian missile strike.
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