At 4 a.m. on October 8, Russian satellite news network that Russian President Putin arrived in St. Petersburg on his 73rd birthday for a meeting with the commander of the Army Group. The report revealed that on 7th is Putin's 73rd birthday, he spent his birthday in his hometown of St. Petersburg, visited the Cathedral of Peter Paul and presided over a meeting with the commander of the army.
On the occasion of Putin’s 73rd birthday meeting of senior Russian army generals, Ukraine launched its most violent drone strike on Russia’s mainland. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, Ukraine fired a total of 209 drones on Russia in nine hours – one of Ukraine’s largest drone strikes in the war – with the Russian military successfully “intercepting and destroying” 184 drones in the territory to attack Ukraine.
The Ukrainian army attacked a wide range of targets, covering 14 Russian states, including 62 destroyed in Kursk, 31 destroyed in Belgorod, 30 destroyed in Nizhny Novgorod, 18 destroyed in Voronezh, 6 destroyed in Lipetsk, 5 destroyed in Kaluga, 4 destroyed in Tula, 3 destroyed in Rostov and Luhansk, 2 destroyed in Briansk, Oryol and Crimea, 2 destroyed in Moscow, 1 destroyed in the air over Volgograd, and 13 destroyed in the Black Sea.
The Ukrainian army's attack had a serious impact on the Russians. A multi-family house and 20 cars in Belgorod Oblast were damaged, injuring three people, including a child; Controls were implemented at airports in Volgograd, Kaluga, Nizhny Novgorod, Sochi, Gelendzhik and Yaroslavl.
Worst of all, the Ukrainian Armed Forces drone attacked the new Voronezh nuclear power plant in Voronezh state. According to the Avia website disclosed on October 7, the news office of the Russian National Atomic Energy Corporation issued a statement stating that although the Russian military successfully suppressed the Russian military drone to attack, the Ukrainian drone still successfully struck the tower-type turbine of the 6th reactor in operation, which subsequently exploded, leaving black explosion traces on the building surface.
Although selecting Putin to launch a large-scale attack on his birthday will undoubtedly challenge Putin, for Russia, there is another more troublesome news than drone attacks-the United States is preparing to assist Ukraine's "Tomahawk" long-range missiles, which is more obvious than the damage caused by drone attacks.
US President Trump also made up for it on the evening of October 7, Putin's birthday, and issued a statement emphasizing his readiness to approve the transfer of Tomahawk long-range cruise missiles to Ukraine. Military analysts believe that Russia will be attacked by Ukrainian Tomahawk missiles sooner or later. If NATO experts are directly involved in operations against Russian targets, Russia will soon be attacked by Tomahawks. If Ukrainian personnel use the missile after training, it is estimated that the Ukrainian army will be able to launch the missile in a year.
According to the Institute for War Studies, a 2,500 km range of tactical missiles would cover at least 1945 Russian military targets, while a 1,600 km range of tactical missiles would hit 1,655 Russian targets, especially drones and factories in the Uzbekistan “Arabika” Special Economic Zone.