Ukraine downs 32 drones, but some still get through

A crater near trucks destroyed by Russian shelling on Tuesday. Pic/AP

Ukrainian air defenses downed 32 of 35 Shahed exploding drones launched by Russia early Tuesday, most of them in the Kyiv region, in an attack that exposed gaps in the country's air protection.

Russian forces mostly targeted the region around the Ukrainian capital in a night-time attack lasting around three hours, but Ukrainian air defences in the area shot down about two dozen of them. The attack was part of a wider bombardment of Ukrainian regions that extended as far as the Lviv region to the west, near Poland.

The Shahed drones made it all the way to Lviv because of the inability of air defense assets to cover such a broad area, Ukrainian air force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat said. "Air defense systems are mostly dedicated to protecting major cities, key infrastructure facilities and the front line," he said.

German population increases by 1.3%

People outside the Ukrainian embassy in Berlin. Pic/AP

Large numbers of refugees from Ukraine fleeing Russia's war fueled a 1.3 per cent rise in Germany's population last year, taking its number of inhabitants to more than 84.4 million. Germany's population expanded by 1.12 million in 2022, compared with an increase of just 82,000 people in 2021.

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