The strikes on multiple fronts, including the capital Kiev and the western province of Lviv, come hours after the ICC’s announcement.
Large-scale Russian attacks continued in Ukraine following the International Criminal Court’s decision to issue arrest warrants for Russian President Vladimir Putin and the Russian Commissioner for Children’s Rights.
The Ukrainian Air Force said in the early hours of Saturday that Ukraine was attacked by 16 Russian drones on Friday night.
The Air Force Command wrote on Telegram that 11 of the 16 drones were shot down “in the central, western and eastern regions”.
Among the targeted areas are the capital Kiev and the western province of Lviv.
The head of the Kiev city administration, Serhiy Popko, said that Ukrainian air defenses shot down all the drones heading for the Ukrainian capital, while the governor of Lviv province, Maksym Kozitsky, said on Saturday that three of the six drones were shot down, while the other three hit the region. adjacent. Poland.
According to the Ukrainian Air Force, the attacks took place from the eastern coast of the Sea of Azov and the Russian province of Bryansk, which borders Ukraine.
And the Ukrainian army added in its periodic update this morning, Saturday, that the Russian forces launched 34 air attacks, one missile strike, and 57 anti-aircraft shots over the past twenty-four hours.
The Facebook update said that falling debris hit the southern province of Kherson, damaging seven homes and a kindergarten.
Pavlo Kirilenko, the regional governor of the Donetsk region, said one person was killed and three wounded when 11 towns and villages in the region were bombed on Friday.
To the west, Russian missiles hit a residential area Friday night in the city of Zaporizhia, the regional capital of the partially occupied territory of the same name.
There were no reports of casualties, but homes were damaged and a catering establishment was destroyed, said Anatoly Kortev of the Zaporizhia City Council.
International Criminal Court memorandum
The International Criminal Court said Friday it had issued an arrest warrant for Putin for war crimes, accusing him of personal responsibility for the kidnapping of children from Ukraine, along with Russia’s Children’s Rights Commissioner Maria Lvova Belova.
This is the first time that a world court has issued an arrest warrant against the leader of one of the five permanent members of the United Nations Security Council.
But Moscow immediately rejected the move and Ukraine welcomed it as a major achievement.
However, its practical implications could be limited because the chances of Putin facing trial at the ICC are highly unlikely since Moscow does not recognize the court’s jurisdiction and does not extradite its citizens.
British military officials said on Saturday that Russia is likely to expand conscription. In its latest intelligence update, Britain’s Ministry of Defense said that deputies in Russia’s State Duma, the lower house of Russia’s parliament, introduced a bill on Monday to change the conscription age for men from 21 to 30, from 18 to 27 currently.
Currently, many men between the ages of 18 and 21 claim exemption from military service because they are in higher education, the ministry said. Change means that they still ultimately have to serve. It said the law is likely to be passed and will enter into force in January 2024.
