Part 2/6:
On the day of the assault, President Zelenskyy reported that Russian forces deployed an overwhelming 93 missiles and nearly 200 drones aimed at crippling Ukraine's power grid. Remarkably, Ukrainian forces managed to intercept about 80 of those missiles, yet the intensity of the strikes underscores a tactical objective to exhaust Ukraine's air defense systems. The Kremlin, justifying the attack, framed it as retaliation for a recent Ukrainian strike on an airbase using American-supplied long-range missiles.