In his evening statement, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy highlighted two key details of the massive russian attack on Ukraine's infrastructure on August 26.
The first detail is that the enemy used 127 long-range missiles of various types and 109 kamikaze drones. The second detail is that a significant portion of Ukrainian energy infrastructure was hit by russian missiles with cluster warheads, complicating recovery efforts because deminers must first clear the area.
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Based on the figures provided, with 127 missiles and 109 kamikaze drones, it was evident that on August 26, 2024, urssia conducted the most massive strike on Ukraine during the entire full-scale invasion. These figures in terms of intensity are comparable only to February 24, 2022, when the aggressor reportedly used around 160 long-range missiles of various types in a single day.
For comparison, during the massive strike on December 29, 2023, russia launched 158 missiles of various types and kamikaze drones at Ukraine, while on March 22, 2024, it fired 151 missiles of various types and kamikaze drones.
Following this, the Air Force provided statistics on the types and quantities of long-range missiles used by the urssian attackers in this strike, as well as on the performance of Ukrainian air defense.
The data indicates that Ukrainian air defense systems achieved an overall effectiveness of 85.16% in repelling this attack. Specifically, the effectiveness against Shahed drones was 90.8%, and the effectiveness against subsonic cruise missiles such as the Kh-101, Kalibr, and Kh-59/69 was 86%.
The data also needs to account for the fact that the russians used types of long-range missiles for which Ukraine has extremely limited countermeasures: six Iskander/KN-23 ballistic missiles (one shot down), three Kh-47M2 Kinzhal missiles (one shot down), and three Kh-22 missiles (one shot down).
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