Early on 18 April, the Russian military attacked Ukraine with 13 Shahed drones, all of which were successfully downed by Ukrainian forces, as reported by the Ukrainian Air Force. The report indicates that the Russians launched the drones from two directions: from Russia’s Primorsko-Akhtarsk area and from Ukraine’s temporarily occupied Crimea.
With massive Russian missile attacks currently on pause, Russia continues its daily Shahed explosive drone attacks against Ukraine and small-scale missile strikes.
The Air Force noted that all 13 Iran-designed Shahed drones were shot down by anti-aircraft missile units of the Air Force and mobile fire groups of the Defense Forces in Kherson, Dnipropetrovsk, Vinnytsia, Poltava, Khmelnytskyi, Ternopil, and Ivano-Frankivsk oblasts.
Local sources reported explosions in Khmelnytskyi and Ivano-Frankivsk oblasts. In the morning, Ruslan Martsynkivv, the mayor of Ivano-Frankivsk, wrote:
“At dawn, our defenders neutralized several enemy aerial targets. Fortunately, there were no injuries.”
Missile strikes
This morning, in the Dniprovskyi district of Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, an infrastructure facility, and an enterprise were damaged by a Russian missile strike, as reported by Serhii Lysak, the head of Dnipropetrovsk Regional State Administration, on Telegram. At the moment of the report, two strike-induced fires were still ongoing, and further details were being clarified. An explosion in Dnipro City was heard at about 10:20 a.m., Suspilne says.
Russian attacks on Donetsk Oblast killed one civilian and injured two more, as per a report from the regional police. Over the past day, Donetsk Oblast experienced 1,816 Russian fire attacks. Russian forces targeted five populated areas, damaging 22 civilian objects, including 19 residential buildings, schools, and an administrative building, the police say. In Krasnohorivka, two civilians were injured, and aerial bomb attacks in Kostiantynivka damaged 12 private homes and an educational facility.
Last night, Russian troops launched ten missile strikes in Donetsk Oblast, according to regional police. Six rockets targeted Pokrovsk, damaging a service station, a business, and eight civilian cars. Selydove was hit by four missiles at around 3:10 a.m., resulting in the death of a woman born in 1961, according to city authorities.
Meanwhile, the search and rescue operation in Chernihiv, following a Russian missile attack with three Iskander cruise missiles on 17 April, has concluded, according to regional chief Viacheslav Chaus’s report, published on Telegram. He says the Russian strike killed 18 people, including four children, and injured 78, with 37 still hospitalized. As of the morning of 18 April, a Russian missile strike on Chernihiv resulted in damage to 28 buildings and 419 apartments.
The attack reportedly directly hit a hospital in Chernihiv and caused visual damage to several floors of an annex building.
Ukrainian strikes
Yesterday, a Ukrainian missile assault targeted a Russian helicopter airfield near occupied Dzhankoi in Crimea. Reports suggest that the attack destroyed the advanced Russian S-400 air defense system. More details about the attack will be available in our upcoming article.
According to Viktoriia Halitsyna, head of the city’s military administration-in-exile, an explosion occurred in the occupied Berdiansk, Zaporizhzhia Oblast, in the morning. Occupation authorities claimed the controlled detonation of ammunition.
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