Up to 48 attack UAVs were launched from Russia's Kursk and Primorsko-Akhtarsk regions in a wave of attacks against cities and regions from Lviv in the west to Odessa in the south and Kharkiv in the northeast, the Ukraine Air Force reported on social media.
Ukraine air defense operations, including fighter aircraft, anti-aircraft missile units and mobile fire groups largely rebuffed the attacks, shooting down 24 of the drones together with a guided air-to-surface missile launched from above the occupied part of Kharkiv region.
However, critical infrastructure facilities in the Lviv region suffered five hits from drones, setting at least one ablaze, according to Lviv Regional Military Administration Head Maksym Kozytskyi.
The Ukrainian Air Force's western command downed 11 of the drones but five got through to their targets, Kozytskyi wrote in a social media post.
"Fortunately, there were no victims or injured. There was a fire, but it was quickly extinguished. Thank you to our Air Defense Warriors, who worked very professionally in extreme conditions when drones flew in several waves and often changed direction."
Speaking on Friday morning, President Volodymyr Zelensky said Kharkiv, Zaporizhzhia, Kherson, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Kyiv, Kirovohrad, Vinnytsia, and Khmelnytskyi had also come under attack.
"We realize that as winter approaches, Russian terrorists will try to do more damage. We will respond to the enemy," said Zelensky.
Kharkiv was attacked by four drones causing major fires and damaging a residential building, an educational institution, a service station, an administrative building, outbuildings, cars, and garages, said regional governor Oleh Syniehubov.
Odesa Governor Oleh Kiper said air defenses downed two drones and a local infrastructure facility was hit and damaged.
Civilian authorities in the Ivano-Frankivsk region, 370 miles southwest of Kyiv reported drone damage to a dormitory from falling debris, the Interior Ministry said. Governor Svitlana Onyshchuk said a military site had also been struck in the drone raid.
The raids follow a tightening of U.S. sanctions Thursday covering 130 new evasion and military-industrial targets Washington said were designed to "disrupt the networks and channels" Russia uses to keep its military up and running.
"Today's sanctions focus on individuals and entities abetting Russia's unconscionable war against Ukraine by providing Russia with much-needed technology and equipment from third countries," the U.S. Treasury's Office of Foreign Assets Control said in a news release.
The FAC office said the measures also targeted Russia's industrial base, in its effort to retool into Russia's war machine.
"With these designations, Treasury is disrupting producers, exporters, and importers of nearly all of the high-priority items identified by the international coalition imposing sanctions and export controls on Russia," it said.
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