Large-scale Ukrainian attack targets air bases in Russia, authorities say
Those details could not be independently verified, but the statement from the ministry came hours after an official in Ukraine's security services, known as the SBU, said that a large-scale drone operation was underway.
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The official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive intelligence operation, said that dozens of aircraft were damaged. It was not immediately possible to independently confirm that claim, but Russian military bloggers were quick to opine on what appeared to be a significant failure of defenses.
'Today will later be called a black day for Russian long-range aviation,' read a post on the Telegram channel called Fighterbomber, which is believed to be run by Capt. Ilya Tumanov of the Russian army. It added: 'And the day is not over yet.'
The deputy head of Ukraine's presidential office, Iryna Vereshchuk, said that the security services had 'set a new bar of skill in conducting large-scale combat operations on enemy territory.'
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'This is not a knockout, but a very serious knockdown for the enemy,' she wrote on Telegram.
Earlier Sunday, Ukraine's military said that a Russian missile attack on a training base killed at least 12 soldiers and wounded more than 60 others -- a rare statement acknowledging casualties within its ranks.
The commander of Ukraine's ground forces, Maj. Gen. Mykhailo Drapatyi, submitted his resignation after the attack on the base, in the Dnipro region, saying in a statement that he felt a 'personal sense of responsibility for the tragedy.'
'An army in which commanders bear personal responsibility for the lives of their people is alive. An army where no one is held accountable for losses dies from within,' he said.
Ukraine's military said it was investigating the circumstances, but emphasized that there was not a mass gathering at the time of the strike -- an apparent attempt to demonstrate lessons learned from previous incidents.
'At the time the air-raid alert was announced, all personnel were in shelters, except for those who may not have had time to reach it,' Vitalii Sarantsev, a spokesperson for Ukraine's ground forces, said in an interview with Ukrainian news media.
Ukraine's military does not typically disclose official casualty figures, which are treated as a state secret and are a highly sensitive topic in the country. Past attacks with large numbers of military casualties -- like when a Russian missile killed soldiers gathered for an awards ceremony in southern Ukraine in late 2023 -- have raised questions about security protocols.
The dueling attacks came on the eve of another round of peace talks in Istanbul, proposed by Moscow. While Ukraine had insisted it see a promised memorandum outlining Russia's ceasefire terms before sending any officials to the talks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy announced Sunday that his country would in fact send a delegation.
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He did not say whether Ukraine had received the memorandum. In a post on social media, Zelenskyy said only that he had met with senior leadership and 'defined our positions' before the talks Monday in Istanbul, where Defense Minister Rustem Umerov would lead Ukraine's delegation.
Ukrainian officials have accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of stalling for time in the negotiations.
Hours before the strike on the military training base, Russia launched what Ukrainian officials said was the largest combined overnight aerial assault on the country since the start of the war.
Ukraine's air force said that Russia launched 472 drones and seven missiles overnight. It said that the majority of the drones and three of the incoming missiles were intercepted, but that at least 18 targets were struck. While the air force did not provide further details on what was struck, local officials in the Kyiv region said that at least 10 homes had sustained damage. Local authorities also reported damage in the Kirovohrad region of central Ukraine and in the northeastern Kharkiv region.
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