Ukraine reveals how many guided bombs Russia has dropped since the year began

The Ukrainian Defense Minister revealed the number of guided bombs that Russia has dropped on Ukraine since the beginning of the year in a statement on social media that followed an attack on a supermarket in Kharkiv.  

Russia has dropped almost ten thousand guided bombs on Ukraine since the beginning of the year according to Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, a revelation he explained on Facebook after Kharkiv’s Epicentr K hypermarket bombing. 

On May 25th, Russian forces continued their deadly assaults on Kharkiv in northeastern Ukraine, which resulted in a building materials supermarket being struck by two guided bombs according to The Kyiv Independent.

Umerov remarked on the incident, writing “we again face merciless Russian aggression” before explaining that the attack on the Hypermarket of Kharkiv was undertaken during the day which meant hundreds of people could have been there. 

“The hostile attack on the construction hypermarket of the hero city of Kharkiv… is nothing more than another act of genocide of the Ukrainian people by the Putin regime,” Defense Minister Umerov explained on his Facebook page. 

Umerov called the bombing a “deliberate killing of the civilian population” and also called on the country’s allies to provide Ukraine with more air defense systems and aviation. “We talk about it with our allies every day and at every opportunity,” he said. 

Ukraine’s Defense Minister went on to explain that “since the beginning of the year alone, the enemy has dropped almost 10,000 guided bombs on our land” and also expressed his condolences to the families that lost loved ones in the attack. 

“I express my deepest condolences to the families of the dead and wounded. No words will be able to silence your grief. However, we will do everything to bring those responsible for this brutal and deliberate aggression to justice,” Umerov wrote. 

President Volodymyr Zelensky was also quick to comment on the Hypermarket attack and he wrote on Telegram that more than 200 might have been inside when Russia dropped its guided bombs on the supermarket. 

“Today's Russian strikes on Kharkiv are yet another example of Russian madness—there is no other way to describe it. Only insane people like Putin are capable of killing and terrorizing people in such heinous ways,” Zelesnky wrote on X. 

The Ukrainian President also remarked that if Ukraine had more air defense systems and aviation, then the Russian air fleet would have been defeated in the same way as the Black Sea Fleet, adding “Russian terror would simply be impossible.”

The Kyiv Independent reported that 30% of the rubble generated by the attack had been removed as of May 26th according to the Governor of Kharkiv Oleh Syniehubov, but the rescue efforts had to be suspended due to air raids. 

"We are suspending operations during air raid alerts, as the (Russian) occupier is not employing the tactic of double strikes for the first time," Syniehubov wrote on Telegram. 

Eight people were still thought to be missing at the time, which was in addition to the 16 people who had been killed in the attack and 44 who were injured. A follow-up attack on Kharkiv’s city center hours after the supermarket was bombed also injured 25 people. 

On May 27th, Dmytro Chubenko, a spokesperson for Ukraine's Prosecutor’s Office noted that the death toll from the attacks on May 25th had been raised to 18 with only five people still missing and 13 of the dead identified, Ukrainska Pravda reported.

Search and rescue efforts had continued again according to Chubenko, but he noted that these efforts were complicated by the consequences that followed the explosion and the severe fires that made it difficult to locate remains.

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