Massive attack of drones and missiles on Kyiv: What's Russia's strategy?

Now six people have been killed in what Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has described as a calculated Russian attack on Kiev. Dozens more were injured when the barrage of drones and missiles overwhelmed Ukraine's air defence systems in the early hours of Friday morning, targeting power and water infrastructure as well as residential areas. This Ukrainian mother is still in shock. After a Russian strike hit their neighbourhood in Kiev, she and her son escaped through a window as flames blocked the exit of their apartment. We live on the second floor. I lowered my child out through the window. My child's 14 years old, a teenager. I lowered him first and I jumped through the window myself. People on the ground tried to catch us. They didn't manage that and I hurt my leg. Flames erupted in the early hours of Friday at several locations in Kiev. According to the Ukrainian authorities, Russian forces used 430 drones and 18 missiles. Most of them were shot down. But falling debris and fires damaged residential buildings and caused multiple casualties. In the two flats next door to mine, three people were killed there. My neighbour and his father were killed by the ceiling that fell. In response, Ukraine fired drones and long-range missiles into Russian territory and targeted Moscow's oil and gas facilities. Russians will increasingly be unable to turn a blind eye to the war. Now it is loud enough and it is clear what is really happening. Because we have our entirely justified Ukrainian response to everything Russia is doing against us, against our people. Several people were killed in a separate Russian strike that happened later on Friday morning near the local market in Ukraine's southern port city of Chornomorsk. People there described harrowing scenes. It started with a sound, a very unpleasant one. Well, we all know that it's the sound of a drone. It grew louder and louder. I turned my head and saw it flying directly straight towards somewhere near the morning market. Then there was a huge explosion. After that, the police arrived. It was absolutely terrifying. In Kiev, Inna Vysotka's apartment is left in ruins. She says it's a tragedy, not only for Ukraine, but the whole world, that nobody can stop Russia's attacks. We're going to bring in Inna Sovtsun, a member of the Ukrainian parliament and the deputy head of the Golos party. She joins us from Kiev. Inna Sovtsun, I imagine Ukraine is preparing for more deadly strikes like the ones we've been seeing in the past days. Yes, indeed. And unfortunately for us, of course, the biggest fear for all of us is that one day a drone may end up hitting our apartments where we live, where our families are staying. But those attacks are also targeting specifically the energy infrastructure. So because they target the energy infrastructure, it leads to massive power cuts that we're experiencing now in early November. And we are, of course, very much afraid that the situation will get worse and worse and worse, because even right now, there is no electricity at my place and there will be no electricity for a couple of more hours. Then I will have electricity for four hours and then again, there will be a power cuts. And that is the reality now in November. And of course, even if the majority of people are not directly attacked by drones, people are still feeling the results of the consequences of those attacks because of the power cuts that are the result of those attacks as well. Yeah, power cuts as we approach winter. How is Kiev stepping up its counterattacks on Russia after these latest strikes on the Capitol? Well, on the one hand, there is the front line. And unfortunately, on the front line, the Russians are progressing in their area of Pokrovsk. They're moving forward with a massive force with with lots of weapons, lots of lots of new personnel over there. So over there, Ukrainian soldiers are just trying to to hold on that pressure. But of course, Ukrainian forces are also using a different mechanism, which is that the attacks on the long range attacks on the Russian infrastructure in terms of the companies that are producing drones, the oil refineries and so on and so forth, so that we can undermine Russia's ability to attack us. But unfortunately, that is not enough. There is so much we can do with it, with the capacity that we have. And we very much hope that this Russia's capacity to attack economic capacity to begin with, that it will actually be strengthened by Western sanctions. That is what we need very much to make sure that Russia has no money to attack Ukrainians, because unfortunately, we can't stop that by ourselves. You referenced long range capabilities. Are you getting better armaments from allies? Or are you building your own better long range offensive capabilities? Well, the majority of those attacks from the Ukrainian side is using the Ukrainian made weapons. So that is Ukrainians who are producing mainly the drones, not so much the missiles and drones, of course, have a limited capacity to destroy big infrastructure sites. So that is something that we are working on. But it's still very, it's not nearly enough, to put it mildly. We are now able to use some of the Western weapons. But again, it's not enough. And Russia is still a huge military force. And it's very difficult to match Russia's force, particularly with not so much help from the West as we are asking for. Member of the Ukrainian parliament, Ina Sovksyn, many thanks to you. Thank you. Right, we are now joined by DW Russia analyst Konstantin Erget in Vilnius. Hello, Konstantin. Thanks for joining us. So Moscow says, it's not targeting civilians. So what should we make from the pictures we are seeing from Kiev? Well, nothing else but the usual fact that Moscow is lying. That is a very usual tactic, designed first and foremost of all, for domestic audience. Of course, Putin's propagandists know that these pictures reach the world and most people will make the right conclusion from them. But it is designed to placate the Russian public opinion and tell the Russian public opinion, no, you know, we're just waging a very just war where we target only military installations, only sites that are legitimate. And I think that judging by talking to some people in Russia via Signal, for example, and looking at Russian social media posts, I can say that this works. I mean, a lot of people do believe that Russia is waging a very surgical sort of a very precise war in Ukraine. Right. Also, Russia seems to be firing huge waves of drones and missiles all at once. Is this the main strategy to overwhelm Ukraine's defenses? And is that working? Yes, it seems that this is indeed the strategy. It may have something to do with the fact that Ukrainians, according to intelligence reports, during August and September, destroyed a significant, very significant sites where Russian drones were stored in occupied eastern Ukraine. Maybe now the Russians want actually to produce more and then basically what they want to do, they, I think, want to overwhelm Ukrainian air defenses, which have seen extra supplies from that this is what we see is a desire to really overwhelm something that seems to be working against a less intense attack. At least this is my understanding of that. But probably it's better to ask someone who's better military insights in what goes on in the field. Right, right. Kyiv, at the same time, seems to be stepping up its counter attacks on energy facilities inside Russia. How's that going? Well, I think that there is a very interesting development here. The fact that before, Ukrainians were targeting mostly power plants and essentially the sites where Russian oil is processed into, you know, diesel and petrol and so on and so forth, but refineries. But what we've seen recently is an attempt to hamper Russian oil exports. About 36 hours ago, 48 hours ago, we've seen massive strike on Russia's second biggest oil export terminal in the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, where it seems a very significant damage was inflicted by Ukrainian cruise missiles and drones. I think that Ukraine increasingly uses its home produced Neptune and Flamingo cruise missiles to target such sites that really have direct link to Russia's oil exports, which are the main lubricants for the war. Right. DW Russia analyst Konstantin Egert, thank you.