Zelensky orders faster repairs as drone barrages hammer Ukraine

Volodymyr Zelensky isn't waiting for the smoke to clear. The Ukrainian president said Wednesday he has told relevant teams and agencies to roll out extra measures aimed at speeding up repairs and getting power back on after Russia's latest airstrikes, according to Breaking The News.

The holdup, Zelensky said in a social media post, is the sheer repetition of the attacks. Repeated strikes and near-constant air raid alerts are stretching repair work out far longer than normal. He added that reserves of the necessary equipment have already been stockpiled and that restoration crews must be able to follow every strike. Talks with partners are underway to refill those reserves quickly, with agreements on new energy support packages already locked in.

The scale of the overnight exchange was enormous. Russia's Defense Ministry said its forces intercepted 709 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles, listing downed drones over Belgorod, Bryansk, Kursk, Kaluga, Tula, Ryazan, Oryol, Voronezh, Saratov, Samara, Rostov, Krasnodar, Moscow, Crimea, Adygea and the Azov and Black Seas. On the other side, Ukraine's Air Force said it intercepted 272 Russian drones, out of 310 launched between 6:00 pm local time Tuesday and 8:00 am Wednesday. The Ukrainian military identified the UAVs as Shahed, Gerbera and Parodiya types, saying they were hit above 19 locations and that debris turned up at 15.

Moscow got its own scare. Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said Russian air defense forces shot down eight drones heading toward the city, and that emergency crews were working where debris fell. Kaluga, Tula and Ryazan, also on the interception list, sit on the approach routes to the capital.

Kyiv's power problem is not new, and it is not small. Mayor Vitaliy Klitschko has described the electricity supply situation in the city as extremely difficult following Russian strikes on energy infrastructure, per Breaking The News. Air raid sirens sounded in the capital Tuesday amid a potential ballistic missile attack, Fox correspondent Trey Yingst reported, while Ukrainian media warned Russians were preparing a possible massive strike on Kyiv, the Kyiv region and Dnipro in central Ukraine.

That warning is the backdrop for Zelensky's repair push. Earlier this week he said the latest Russian attacks showed the country hates Ukraine and everything in it. The new energy support packages he mentioned are meant to keep crews stocked as winter pressure builds and every restored substation becomes a target again.