Tuesday, March 24. Russia’s War On Ukraine: News And Information F rom Ukraine Dispatches from Ukraine. Day 1,490 LVIV, UKRAINE - MARCH 24: A man walks past burning building in center of city after Russian drone attack on March 24, 2026 in Lviv, Ukraine. massive drone attack on Ukraine , hitting major Ukrainian cities across the country, including the historic center of Lviv, a western city only about 45 miles from the Polish border. Russia has launched the largest aerial attack on Ukraine, with 948 drones over a 24-hour period since the war. More than 400 drones were fired on Tuesday afternoon alone, in an unusual daytime attack that killed and injured many. In Lviv, in broad daylight, Russia hit a monastery, a UNESCO World Heritage site, in the city's center, as well as a residential building. Mayor Andriy Sadovyi said 22 people in his city were injured and warned that the number would increase.Russia's expanding use of drones has not displaced its investment in more traditional strike capabilities, as it continues tocruise missile development, systems that remain, in many respects, more destructive. The first confirmed attack using the latest addition to the Kremlin's arsenal, the Izdeliye-30 missile, razed an entire apartment building in Ukraine’s second-largest city of Kharkiv earlier this month. At least 11 people were killed in the March 7 attack, one of the deadliest on that city in recent months. According to Ukrainian officials, the Izeliye-30 first appeared in the Ukrainian skies late last year. "It is a mistake to assume that the future belongs exclusively to drones," said Vladyslav Vlasiuk, the Ukrainian president's commissioner for sanctions, following the bloody attack. His remark highlights Russia's modernization strategy, which lies in diversifying its arsenal rather than replacing conventional weapons with much-hyped drones. Unlike its predecessor, the Kh-101, which is mainly launched from strategic bombers such as the Tu-95MS and Tu-160, the Izeliye-30 can also be deployed from tactical aircraft. This would likely complicate Ukraine's ability to intercept such strikes, as Russia has a larger pool of tactical jets that are often used along the front lines.In a way, this new missile is filling a gap in the Kremlin's offensive capabilities that was created by Ukraine. Last summer, Kyiv targeted Russia's strategic aviation fleet in its celebrated operation "Spider's Web.” According to Ukrainian officials, the ambush-like attack annihilated almost 40 aircraft, though other international estimates suggest a more modest figure closer to half that number. Technologically, the Izdeliye-30 builds on existing systems rather than introducing a wholly new missile platform: it merges components from earlier Russian missiles and integrates a jam-resistant satellite navigation system. Much like any of Russia's military equipment, it relies on elements illegally smuggled in from Western countries, including the U.S. The new missile has a shorter reported range of just over 900 miles, but carries a significantly larger warhead of nearly 800 kilograms, compared to the Kh-101. According to Ukraine's military intelligence, the Izdeliye-30 made its debut in 2025, though references to its design date back earlier. "At that time, Russia was actively using cruise missiles because it could not ramp up its use of ballistic missiles," said Anatolii Hrapchynskyi, a reserve officer in Ukraine's Air Force. "Russia has long been seeking a way to reduce costs while increasing the payload capacity of these weapons," Hrapchynskyi continued.Patriarch Filaret, the powerful cleric who helped Ukraine's Orthodox church break away from Moscow, hasat 97. His death was confirmed by the Orthodox Church of Ukraine last Friday, March 20, following "the exacerbation of chronic diseases," after his reported hospitalization in Kyiv. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called his passing a "great loss." In posthumous remarks, he described Filaret as "one of the most steadfast defenders" of Ukrainian statehood and credited him with contributing to Ukraine's success. "Without the energy, character, and courage of Patriarch Filaret, many of Ukraine's achievements simply would not have been possible," Zelenskyy said. Orthodox Christianity in Ukraine and Russia had existed, for centuries, under a shared hierarchy controlled from Moscow. Filaret helped wrench Ukraine from its religious dependence, promoting the idea of a distinctly Ukrainian church aligned with Ukraine as a sovereign nation. "This is our right," he said in 2001, even when relations between Ukraine and Moscow were far from the antagonistic peak they would later reach. However, his break with Moscow was not abrupt. As the Soviet Union began to fray in the 1980s, so did the cohesion of its religious institutions. Filaret led a rival Orthodox movement in Ukraine, a step that provoked his excommunication by the Russian church, but attracted a growing following at home, particularly after Ukraine regained its independence. Russia's illegal annexation of Crimea in 2014 brought support for Ukraine's full religious liberation to another level, culminating in the formal recognition of the Orthodox Church of Ukraine in 2019. While winning religious independence from Moscow was also considered among Petro Poroshenko's defining achievements as Ukraine's fifth president, it did little to protect him from a crushing defeat to Zelenskyy in the 2019 election.