KYIV: Russia and Ukraine launched large-scale drone barrages overnight, Kyiv and Moscow said Monday, hours before negotiators from the two sides were to start a second round of direct talks in Turkey.
The Russian defence ministry said its air defence units had “intercepted and destroyed” 162 Ukrainian drones.
The majority were downed over regions bordering Ukraine, with 57 intercepted over the Kursk region and 31 over the Belgorod region, it said.
The barrage came hours before Ukrainian and Russian delegations were to sit down for talks in Istanbul, only the second round of direct talks since the weeks after Moscow sent troops into Ukraine in February 2022.
It also came a day after Ukraine said it carried out one of its most brazen and successful attacks on Russian soil, hitting dozens of strategic bombers parked at airbases deep inside Russia, thousands of kilometres behind the front line.
Ukraine said Russia had attacked its territory with 80 drones overnight, including Iranian-designed Shahed-type unmanned aerial vehicles, as well as four missiles. It added that the projectiles managed to strike 12 targets.
Local officials released images showing damaged residential buildings in the eastern city of Kharkiv.
Separately, officials in the southern region of Kherson said a 40-year-old man was killed in the frontline territory by Russian artillery.
