Day 1,222: Russia’s biggest air attack yet kills Ukrainian F-16 pilot, strikes Lviv

Russia has launched an intensive airstrike of  447 drones at Ukraine, killing their F-16 pilot Lieutenant Colonel Maksym Ustimenko among many others. According to the Ukrainian Air Force, Russia launched a full scale invasion on Ukraine firing 447 drones, decoys and 60 missiles on Sunday. 

According to the reports, Ukraine was able to intercept 475 of the weapons launched but the rest managed to penetrate, killing at least 4 in Kherson, Kharkiv, Dnipropetrovsk and Kostiantynivka regions during the air raids. 

The strike marks day 1,222 of the Russia-Ukraine war with Russia aerial attacks targeting far regions as far as the city of Lviv with a drone attack causing a large fire at an industrial facility in the city of Drohobych, and cut electricity to parts of the area.

According to the Russian Defense Ministry, they have intercepted three Ukrainian drones overnight and have also asserted control over the village of Novoukrainka which is in the Partially occupied region of Denetsk by Russia. 

The acting governor of Russia, Kursk, said that two people were injured in a Ukrainian attack on the border region, while the Russian news agency reports that 1 person has been killed by the Ukraine drone that flew and landed in the Russian controlled part of Ukraine’s Luhansk region reported one of the Russian news agencies. 

Ukraine’s President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy is now seeking aid from its western allies, particularly the United States, to strengthen the country's air defenses. Ukraine banned the production and use of anti-personnel mines and pulled out of the Ottawa Convention saying that Russia has been using anti personnel mines for its self interest even though it has never been a party to the treaty. 

The United States is set to be discussing the imposing of sanctions soon according to the US Senator Lindsey Graham who said that the country’s congress will begin voting on Russian sanctions after President Donald Trump told him, “It’s time to move your bill.”

Meanwhile, Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, has warned the European countries that they would face the consequences if they were to impose more severe sanctions on Russia. “The more serious the package of sanctions, which, I repeat, we consider illegal, the more serious will be the recoil from a gun to the shoulder. This is a double-edged sword,” he said.