Ukraine’s military said Thursday its air defenses downed 34 of 44 Shahed drones that Russia used to attack the country overnight.

The areas targeted in the attack included Mykolaiv, Odesa and Kirovohrad.

Oleh Kiper, the regional governor of Odesa, said on Telegram there were no casualties there. He said there was no destruction, only a few small grass fires from falling debris.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address Wednesday that his country’s fighters “need more means of destroying Russian missiles, Shaheds and other combat drones, as well as Russian aircraft.”

Zelenskyy expressed gratitude to “everyone in the world who is already helping and is willing to ramp up assistance to our country with the means that can provide more protection against Russian terror.”

Wagner fighters

About 500 Wagner mercenaries who fought alongside Russian troops in Ukraine before fleeing to Belarus after a short-lived mutiny in June have now returned to the front lines to again fight Kyiv’s forces, a Ukrainian Army spokesperson said Wednesday.

Wagner founder Yevgeny Prigozhin was killed in a plane crash in Russia last month, raising questions about the future of his forces. Some, possibly as many as 6,000, have been in Belarus for three months, while others had been deployed to Africa, where Wagner also has had ongoing operations.

Now, about 500 of the Wagner troops have resumed fighting for Russia in Ukraine, Ilya Yevlash, the spokesperson for Ukraine’s Eastern Grouping of Forces, told Ukrainian broadcaster RBC-Ukraine. He said the Russian Defense Ministry had renegotiated contracts with the returning mercenaries.

“These individuals are indeed among the most well-trained in the Russian army, but they will not become a game-changer,” Yevlash said. 

Most of the Wagner forces that had previously fought in Ukraine had taken part in the brief mutiny but moved to Belarus under a deal the Belarusian leader, Alexander Lukashenko, negotiated with Russian President Vladimir Putin. Yevlash said the camps in Belarus are now being disbanded.

The cause of the plane crash that killed Prigozhin and other Wagner leaders has not been determined but many Western officials believe it was Putin’s retribution for the uprising Prigozhin led, a troop movement toward Moscow that he abruptly called off.

In the weeks that followed, Prigozhin met with Putin at the Kremlin and traveled freely in Russia before the plane crash.

Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters. 
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