Ukraine intercepts 27 of 30 Russian Shahed drones, sparking inferno at Lviv warehouse and killing 1

Kyiv, September 19

Russia launched a massive drone attack on the western city of Lviv early Tuesday, damaging a warehouse facility in a fiery blaze and killing one man, Ukrainian authorities said.

Ukraine intercepted 27 of 30 Shahed drones overnight, the Air Force said. But drones that got through air defense systems sparked an inferno at the industrial storage facility that was not used for military purposes, Gov. Maksym Kozytsky said.

An artillery strike in Kherson in the south struck a bus, killing a police sergeant and wounding two men, said Ihor Klymenko, Ukraine’s minister of internal affairs. That strike also set a warehouse on fire.

The developments in the war front came as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was in New York to address the UN General Assembly and Security Council before going to Washington on Thursday to meet with lawmakers and President Joe Biden.

Zelenskyy has continued to drum up funding and support for new weapons as the counteroffensive Ukraine launched in June approaches what could be its final weeks before wet weather slows progress. Ukraine has made small advances but no major breakthroughs.

Meanwhile, US Defence Secretary Lloyd Austin said, while in Germany attending the meeting of the Ukraine Defence Contact Group, that the 31 M1 Abrams tanks it promised will soon begin arriving in Ukraine, as was expected.

Norway said it will donate approximately 50 tracked cargo carriers to Ukraine.

In a statement Tuesday, Norwegian Defence Minister Bjørn Arild Gram said it would help get supplies to areas without roads.