Russia has launched 4,500 missile strikes and more than 8,000 airstrikes against Ukraine, said President Volodymyr Zelenskyi, who addressed the nation on Thursday evening near an Iranian drone shot down by the Kyiv army.

Abandoning the usual indoor shot, Zelensky filmed himself outside in the dark near the wreckage of a drone, saying in his daily video address that the Ukrainian military had shot down 23 drones over the past two days.

Over the past two weeks, Russia has launched dozens of missiles and drones at Ukraine’s power grid, causing severe damage and power outages.

Zelensky also noted that Russia has so far carried out more than 8,000 airstrikes and 4,500 missiles:

• “We continue our resistance. The aggressor continues his terror. A flock of their crows is attacking us again from the sky.
• More than 30 drones were launched in two days. The defenders of our sky prevented enemy eagles from entering the country and shot down 23 drones. In addition, the Kh-59 air-to-air missile, two Ka-52 attack helicopters and another Su-25 attack aircraft were scrapped.
• In total, during this period, Russia carried out 4,500 missile strikes and more than 8,000 air raids. But we are fighting, we will beat more.”
• “We cannot be broken by bombings: hearing the enemy’s anthem on our land is scarier than (hearing) the enemy’s rockets in our sky. We are not afraid of the dark,” Zelenskyy said.

Kyiv and four Ukrainian regions may have to cut power for longer than expected after Russian attacks, a senior Ukrainian official said on Thursday.

According to British intelligence services, Moscow is increasingly using Iranian-made “kamikaze drones” because it is running out of high-precision, long-range weapons.

Daily updates based on intelligence sources that London has been publishing since the beginning of the Russian invasion of Ukraine on February 24 are qualified by the Kremlin as “propaganda”.

On the ground, a series of drone and long-range missile attacks by the Russian military over the past two weeks have severely affected critical infrastructure in Ukraine, such as power plants, leaving hundreds of thousands of people without power over the weekend.

The European Union, the United States and the United Kingdom have imposed sanctions on the Iranian company that produces Shahed drones and organizations that supply them to the Russian armed forces.

Ten Iranians training Russian soldiers have been killed in Ukrainian strikes in the war between Russia and Ukraine over the past week, a Ukrainian official told the KAN news agency, as cited by the Jerusalem Post.

The report comes as US and Ukrainian officials warn that the Iranians are training the Russians to use Iranian drones in Crimea.

Pentagon spokesman Brigadier General Dr. Pat Ryder also stated that “the Iranians were on the territory of Ukraine to assist Russia in drone operations.”

The US State Department spokesman Ned Price also stated at the press conference that Iranian instructors were operating in Crimea.