Two Russian cruise missiles entered Moldova’s airspace on Wednesday morning as a wave of deadly attacks struck Ukraine, leaving nine people dead and 39 others injured.
According to Moldovan officials, a pair of Banderol (S8000) cruise missiles entered their airspace from Ukraine’s Odesa region just after 6am local time, spent several minutes traveling over the country, and then headed back into Ukrainian territory.
The Ministry of Defence in Moldova said that the first missile crossed from Iaski in Ukraine at 6.04am, heading toward Tudora in the Ștefan Vodă district before exiting five minutes later toward Starocazacie. A second missile crossed at 6.06am from Lîmanske toward Pervomaisc in the Transnistrian region, remaining aloft for four minutes before heading back toward Razdelna.
The airspace violations coincided with an overnight assault across multiple Ukrainian regions. Ukraine’s Energy Ministry reported that strikes left residents without electricity across eight regions, including Kyiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Zhytomyr, Zaporizhzhia, Rivne, Kharkiv, Chernihiv, and Odesa.
Russian military forces deployed a Kh-59/69 guided missile from the Black Sea along with 163 long-range attack drones, 91 of which were jet-powered, as reported by Ukraine’s Air Force. By 8am local time, Ukrainian air defences had intercepted 130 drones and 14 Banderol/Dan-T cruise missiles.
Regional governor Oleksandr Hanzha reported that three people were killed and five injured in Dnipropetrovsk. Two more people died and five were injured in Donetsk, while strikes on Kherson left one dead and three wounded.
In Odesa, regional governor Oleh Kiper said one person was killed and another injured while waiting at a bus stop on Tuesday evening. Sumy recorded five injuries, including a 14-year-old girl, following more than 50 attacks across 20 settlements. In Zaporizhzhia, authorities registered 1,107 strikes across 54 settlements, resulting in one death and 15 injuries.
Simultaneously, a Ukrainian drone attack targeted the Ust-Luga oil-exporting port in Russia’s north-western Leningrad region. Explosions rocked the facility overnight, sending flames high enough to be visible from neighbouring Estonia, roughly 15 miles away.
Regional governor Aleksandr Drozdenko said that three workers were injured and a power station was knocked offline, while claiming that Russian air defences shot down 150 drones over the Leningrad region. The strike caused major flight disruptions in St Petersburg and prompted Finland to temporarily restrict airspace over the eastern Gulf of Finland.
These military actions unfolded while Russian and Ukrainian officials held talks in Abu Dhabi aimed at ending the war. US Secretary of State Marco Rubio described Tuesday’s discussions as “very productive,” while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy characterised them as “constructive and quite substantive.”
Zelenskyy accused Russian officials at the talks of making false claims regarding territory in eastern Ukraine. He said that Moscow’s military and intelligence representatives claimed control over roughly 1,000 square miles in Donetsk that remain under Ukrainian administration.
“That’s the problem. Putin lives in a different reality,” Zelenskyy said.
