Russia pounds Kyiv with new jet-powered drones on sixth night of attacks

Russia bombarded Kyiv with jet-powered drones in a sixth consecutive night of strikes on Monday, killing at least nine people and injuring over a dozen. Moscow has intensified its strikes in retaliation against Ukraine’s deep strike campaign, which has dealt a significant blow to Russian energy infrastructure in recent weeks and sparked a fuel crisis. Kyiv said that Russia had used new jet-powered drones which can travel up to 600 kilometres per hour — triple the speed of the piston-powered Shaheds deployed in earlier stages of the conflict."Right now, Russia's tactic is to wear down Ukraine and Ukrainians — first and foremost, our people," Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said in an address on Sunday. The aftermath of a Russian missile attack in Kyiv on Sunday (Reuters)Recent strikes have seen the Kremlin change strategy by pivoting towards day-time attacks using fast-flying jet-propelled drones.Kyiv recorded 13 separate alarms on Friday alone — the highest single-day total since the war began.A pall of black smoke drifted over Kyiv on Monday morning. In Brovary and Boryspil, cities in the Kyiv region, the aerial attacks struck several warehouses and four people were wounded, said Tymur Tkachenko, head of the regional military administration.Continued strikes over the weekend have claimed at least two lives, including a two-year-old girl in Kyiv and a 14-year-old girl in the surrounding Boryspil district, while damaging dozens of residential buildings. On Monday, eight alerts echoed across the capital before lunchtime, forcing residents into bomb shelters for hours.Barrages of daytime strikes forced Ukrainians to take shelter (AFP/Getty)Moscow's expanding aerial arsenal builds on Iranian delta-wing technology, which Tehran has supplied to Vladimir Putin throughout the war. Tehran unveiled its jet-propelled Shahed-238 in late 2023 but Russia has since adapted its design to mass-produce its own domestic variants, including the Geran-4 and Geran-5. Production of these high-speed drones has surged so rapidly that jet models now outnumber older piston-engine versions on the assembly line. According to Ukrainian official Serhiy Beskrestnov, Russian forces launched at least 2,500 jet drones in August — up from 1,500 in July — with date stamps showing that many units are deployed just days after leaving an arms factory. The interception of a Russian projectile during an attack on Kyiv on Tuesday (Reuters)The sudden proliferation of high-speed drones is forcing Kyiv to adapt its defences. While Ukrainian forces had previously managed to achieve high interception rates against older models of Shahed drones, air defences are struggling to catch the new jet-powered variants. Now, Ukrainian engineers are racing to build a faster generation of interceptors capable of targeting the Russian drones. "Four companies have developed the relevant interceptor drones, and one company has the most successful technology," president Zelensky said on Sunday, emphasising that maintaining strong aerial defences into the autumn would be critical.