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A recently released United Nations report eviscerated the Kremlin for “committing murder” in a “systematic and coordinated” military campaign targeting Ukrainian civilians, as Russia launched one of the biggest mass air strikes of the entire Russo-Ukrainian War overnight Wednesday-Thursday. UN findings by human rights investigators researching recent Russian strikes across the Dnipro River, and made public on Oct. 27, found that Kremlin attacks “which have struck a wide range of civilian targets…(and that T)he Russian military’s actions amount to two crimes against humanity…firstly of ‘murder and of forcible transfer of population; and secondly, ‘deportations and transfers of civilians’ from areas occupied by Russian forces, some of whom were tortured.” Zarina Zabrisky, producer of a 2025 documentary on Russian attacks on civilians living in Dnipro river towns and cities called “Kherson: Human Safari,” in Tuesday comments posted on “X,” said that she expected the UN findings to reach only deaf ears and for the killing of Ukrainian civilians to continue. “I’ll tell you what, accountability is everybody’s department. And protection of people, of humans, is everybody’s department. How is this allowed to be happening on a daily basis? How many more people have to be killed? How many more old ladies have to be torn apart? How many more babies have to be butchered? This is a European city. It is completely deserted – because everybody, whoever is left, is hiding. Today, the UN report is hitting the world. Watch it hit against a wall of silence and denial.” On Wednesday evening, Russian drone operators and missile launch crews kicked off one of the most massive strikes by the Kremlin against Ukraine of the entire war, hurling into Ukrainian airspace a total of 705 strike weapons composed of practically every long-range strike weapon type in use by Russian Federation Forces. According to Ukrainian Air Force counts, over a night of fierce air battles, local air defenses tracked and attempted to engage 653 explosives-toting Shahed single-wing drones, four “hypersonic” bomber-dropped Kinzhal ballistic missiles, five ground-launched ballistic missiles (either Russian Iskander-M or North Korean KN-23, eight ship-launched Kalibr cruise missiles, two ground-launched Iskander-K cruise missiles, 30 bomber-dropped Kh-101 cruise missiles, two bomber-dropped Kh-59 or Kh-69 cruise missiles, and one air-launched Kh-31P anti-radar missile. The biggest – so far – Russian drone and missile attack against Ukraine took place on the night of Sept. 6-7, 2025, with an estimated 823 combined drones and missiles launched, published Ukrainian Air Force records say. Ukrainian military spokesmen said air defenses overnight Wednesday-Thursday shot down or diverted from target an overall 88% of incoming weapons. This was a comparatively strong performance by Ukrainian air defenses, whose interception rate, thanks to US cuts in deliveries of interceptor missiles and improved Russian strike tactics in some attacks, has fallen to as low as two out of every three incoming drones and missiles. Shortages of the highly effective US-made Patriot interceptor missiles, deliveries of which the White House cut off in February, have left Ukraine with almost no means of knocking down Russian ballistic missiles. Limited Patriot deliveries, paid for by a consortium of European states led by Britain and Germany, resumed in June. Pentagon officials since then have sometimes halted shipments for days, citing US weapons stock shortages. The heaviest weight of explosives passing through Ukrainian air defenses overnight Wednesday-Thursday seemed to concentrate on Zaporizhzhia, a major southern industrial city of 700,000+ residents. According to a city defense command statement, of the more than 700 weapons launched by Russia at Ukraine that night, a strike package of twenty Shahed drones and eight missiles of mixed types was aimed at Zaporizhzhia. Explosions from aimed weapons, and from missiles and drones hit by air defenses and falling to the ground, were reported across the city. Among structures damaged were apartment high-rises, private homes, and government buildings. One Zaporizhzhia resident died and 23 were injured by the Russian strikes. According to official counts mid-afternoon on Thursday, six of the victims were children. The single bloodiest hit was probably caused by a ballistic missile launched by Russian crew in the Kremlin-occupied Crimea peninsula, according to Ukrainian open-source air defense platforms tracking incoming strikes. Images from Zaporizhzhia showed the weapon blew out the side of a five-story apartment building. The missile warhead, likely containing at least a half-ton of explosives, reduced at least ten apartments to rubble and injured a family of four. Another missile of undetermined type slammed into a Zaporizhzhia dormitory, destroying several floors. Rescue workers were still searching through rubble for survivors as this article was being prepared and the casualty count was expected to climb. The city of Ivano-Frankivsk in western Ukraine, the eastern city of Dnipro, and the central city of Vinnytsia were also targeted. An unidentified weapon struck a Vinnytsia, critically injured a 6-year-old girl. Emergency response teams transported her to the hospital, where she died. At least one missile hit was confirmed at the Vinnytsia central heating plant, damaging capacity to pipe hot water to radiators in most of the homes and businesses in the city. Statements from the Ukrainian national power company DTEK said that in order to prevent grid overload, “significant” cuts in deliveries of electricity were necessary in Ukraine’s Vinnytsia, Mykolaiv, and Ivano-Frankivsk regions. The Ukrainian capital Kyiv, frequently the main focus of Russian massed missile and drone strikes, was a secondary target on Thursday. One woman, 36, a resident of the Kyiv bedroom community town Boryspil, was injured after an Iranian-designed Shahed kamikaze drone struck her home and exploded. She was hospitalized and treated for burns to her face and lacerations to her forehead and shin. Power cuts hit some Kyiv neighborhoods and failures of internet service were reported. Rush hour morning traffic was moving normally, and in central Kyiv, many business owners in districts losing central power deliveries were using generators. In Mykolaiv, a Dnipro River port with a mixed economy based on shipbuilding, machine-manufacturing, and agriculture, power cuts were reported across the city following hits by drones and missiles. The popular political-military information channel Nikolavsky Vanek, on Thursday morning, reported damage and power cuts across the city, and in a defiant message trolling Russian bombardment of civilian targets by missing military ones, to 2.7 million+ followers: “Anyone just waking up? Hello! Did anyone sleep through another ‘precision strike?’ The bombardment primarily tried to target thermal power plants, hydroelectric power plants, and various substations. Details of all these matters will come from local authorities. We’re also expecting more headlines and ‘insider information’ telling us that everything is really awful and we’ll all soon freeze and die in the dark. In reality, nothing even close to that will happen. Our air defenses fought back pretty hard today,” the platform’s Thursday morning report on the strikes said. “Overall, our shooting pretty much was par for the course.” In Kherson, the Dnipro River city at the center of the UN study, overnight, Russian drones, among other targets, hit a hospital, injuring three hospital staff and a 9-year-old girl. “The medical facility’s staff suffered blast injuries and wounds of varying severity. The child suffered a warhead detonation-related blast injury and a shrapnel wound to the shin. The building sustained significant damage,” said Oleksandr Prodiukin, head of the Kherson regional defense command, in a statement.
