Two Ukrainian emergency workers have died in a night attack of Iranian-made Shahed kamikaze drones on Ukraine, Ukraine’s interior minister Ihor Klymenko has said. 21-year old Vladyslav Dvorak and 31-year-old Serhiy Sevruk died fighting fires caused by the drone strike on Khmelnytskyi. Three more people are hospitalized with injuries.
The emergency workers were extinguishing damage caused by an initial drone strike when they came under fire from a repeated attack.
Ukraine’s air defense shot down 11 of 14 kamikaze drones in the night attack of 27 February, Ukraine’s air command said. Nine of these were downed at the approach of Kyiv, the city administration reported. No infrastructure objects were hit.
The administration noted that the drone attack was stretched out in time and came in two waves, with the goal of exhausting Ukraine’s air defense.
Russia has used Iranian-made Shahed kamikaze drones to target Ukraine’s critical infrastructure along with missile strikes. Recently, Ukraine’s military noticed a change of tactics in the drone attacks: the drones went first to recon the positions of Ukraine’s air defense, after which missiles were launched.
