Marking the 1,500th day of the full-scale invasion, Russia launched a massive wave of air strikes across Ukraine during the night of April 3–4.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy characterized the assault as an “Easter escalation,” following the Kremlin’s formal rejection of his earlier proposal for a temporary holiday truce.
According to the Ukrainian Air Force, Russian forces targeted Ukraine with 286 drones, including around 200 Shahed drones. Ukrainian air defenses intercepted 260 of these, according to the air force, while 11 drones struck 10 locations and debris fell in six locations. Fourteen people were reported dead across Ukraine.
Five people were killed and 19 injured when Russian forces struck a market in Nikopol, Dnipropetrovsk region, with drones on the morning of April 4, the Office of the Prosecutor General (OGP) reported. Prosecutors and law enforcement are investigating the site, with the OGP calling it “another Russian war crime.
In the Zhytomyr region, west of Kyiv, rescuers searched for survivors beneath the rubble of homes destroyed in Russian strikes, while in the Sumy region, attacks early on April 4 injured 11 people, including a 15-year-old child, after drones hit a 16-story apartment building and private homes, according to the National Police of Ukraine and the State Emergency Service.
Police also reported that in the past 24 hours in Sumy, Russian strikes killed three people and injured 22 others, including children.
Ukrainian Condemnation
In an April 3 post on her official X account, Ukrainian Prime Minister Yulia Svyrydenko condemned Russia's daylight attacks.
“The purpose of these daytime strikes is clear. Russia is deliberately trying to increase the number of civilian victims, disrupt life, spread fear, and damage Ukraine's infrastructure, Svyrydenko said.
Meanwhile, Ukraine launched drone and missile strikes deep into Russian territory. Russia claimed to have intercepted a total of 192 Ukrainian drones overnight.
According to Reuters, a combined attack on the Rostov region killed at least one person, injured four others, and damaged a logistics warehouse in Taganrog, a port city in southwestern Russia.
Significant damage was reported in the Morozov industrial zone in the Leningrad region, where a strike on a facility producing solid fuel for Topol-M missile systems and high-grade explosives hospitalized two people, according to regional Russian authorities.
Further north, drones targeted Togliatti in the Samara region, home to the major chemical fertilizer producer TogliattiAzot, according to Russian regional authorities.
Additionally, a Ukrainian drone strike sparked a fire on a foreign-flagged commercial vessel in the Sea of Azov, Reuters reported.
On April 4, the Russian Defense Ministry reported that its air defense systems shot down a Flamingo cruise missile and 308 Ukrainian drones in the past 24 hours.
Zelenskyy: Record Russian Losses In March
Following the overnight attacks, Zelenskyy announced on his official X account that “Russian losses this March have reached their highest level since the start of the war."
"Our drone strikes alone resulted in 33,988 Russian service members killed or seriously wounded, while artillery and other strikes eliminated another 1,363 Russian occupiers," the Ukrainian president said.
"That means more than 35,000 Russian losses in just one month, and these are clearly verified losses. We have video documentation of every such strike in our system.”
All war casualty estimates are difficult to independently confirm due to the challenges of verification in active combat zones.
Zelenskyy also noted that the number of Russian air defense systems destroyed has increased, with 274 such systems hit in March.
The General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces reported on the morning of April 4 that since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, approximately 1,302,370 Russian service members have been killed or wounded, including 1,110 in the past 24 hours.
Russia has not officially released updated figures of soldiers killed since September 2022, but NATO sources estimate that as many as 1.15 million Russian have been killed or wounded since the full-scale invasion began.
Zelenskyy said in February that Ukraine has lost 55,000 soldiers, with many additional personnel listed as missing.
