Russia hits Ukraine with record 479-drone strike ahead of POW swap

Al Jazeera

2 days ago

Russia has launched 479 drones against Ukraine in the biggest overnight drone bombardment of the three-year war, according to the Ukrainian air force.
The air force said early on Monday that it had downed 460 drones as well as 19 missiles launched overnight.
Russia's continued to step up its drone and missile attacks on Ukraine, despite declaring, under pressure from United States President Donald Trump, that it is interested in pursuing peace talks. The record launch came just ahead of the start of a prisoner swap agreed at recent talks between the pair.
Of the hundreds of projectiles fired at numerous targets, only 10 reached their destination, Kyiv officials said. One person was reported injured.
Russia's escalation of aerial attacks has been matched by a renewed battlefield push in the eastern and northeastern parts of the roughly 1,000km (621-mile) front line in occupied parts of Ukraine.
The onslaught follows a secretive Ukrainian drone attack that damaged several Russian bombers parked at airbases deep inside the country in what was an embarrassment for the Kremlin and, according to Kyiv, a palpable hit on its ability to strike across the border with missiles.
Russia's Ministry of Defence said one target of Kyiv's strike was the Dubno airbase in Ukraine's Rivne region, which hosts tactical aviation aircraft.
The mayor of the western city of Rivne, Oleksandr Tretyak, said the overnight drone launch was 'the largest attack' on his region since the start of the war.
Late on Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy conceded that in some areas targeted by the Russian offensive, 'the situation is very difficult'. However, he provided no details.
Ukraine is shorthanded on the front line against its bigger enemy and needs further military support from its Western partners, especially air defences. However, uncertainty about the US policy has led to doubts about how much help Kyiv can count on.
Two recent rounds of direct peace talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Istanbul have yielded no breakthroughs beyond pledges to swap thousands of prisoners, including dead and seriously wounded soldiers.
Since the agreement, believed to concern an exchange of around 1,200 prisoners by each, was struck last week, the pair has accused one another of failing to meet their obligations.
However, the first batch of POWs was repatriated on Monday afternoon.
'Today's exchange has begun. It will be done in several stages in the coming days,' Zelenskyy said on the Telegram app. 'Among those we are bringing back now are the wounded, the severely wounded, and those under the age of 25,' he added.
The Russian defence ministry also said the first exchange had been carried out. It did not say how many prisoners had been swapped, but did note that the numbers on each side matched.
The Russian Defence Ministry said on Monday that its forces shot down 49 Ukrainian drones overnight over seven Russian regions.
Two drones hit a plant specialising in electronic warfare equipment in the Chuvashia region, located more than 600km (373 miles) east of Moscow, officials reported.
Since the beginning of the war in 2022, Russia has targeted both military and civilian areas of Ukraine with Shahed drones. The attacks have killed more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians, according to the United Nations. However, Russia claims it attacks only military targets.
Alexander Gusev, head of Russia's Voronezh region, said 25 drones had been shot down there overnight, damaging a gas pipeline and sparking a small fire.
The general staff of the Ukrainian armed forces also claimed that its special operations troops struck two Russian jets stationed at the Savasleyka airfield in Russia's Novgorod region, located some 650km (404 miles) from the Ukrainian border.
The statement did not say how the planes were struck.