An engine of a Russian drone lays on the ground as rescuers work at the site of a Russian drone strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kharkiv, Ukraine on May 7, 2026.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Representative image.
| Photo Credit: Getty Images/iStockphotos

A Russian service member stands next to the remains of a drone, which, according to the Russian Defence Ministry, was downed during the repelling of an alleged Ukrainian attack on the Russian presidential residence in the Novgorod Region, in an unknown location in Russia, in this still image from a video released December 31, 2025.
| Photo Credit: Russian Defence Ministry handout via Reuters

A Ukrainian serviceman with the Safari Unit of the Liut Brigade launches a reconnaissance drone at the frontline in the Donetsk region, Ukraine. File.
| Photo Credit: AP

Both sides in the Ukraine conflict have turned cheap commercial drones into deadly weapons and also increased their production. File
| Photo Credit: Reuters

“Ukraine launched drone attacks across several regions of Russia, striking two residential houses in the Tambov region and injuring at least three people,” Russia said on Saturday (January 11, 2025).

The regional head, Evgeny Pervyshov, said on the Telegram messaging app people were treated for injuries resulting from shattered windows as drones hit two houses in the town of Kotovsk, about 480 kilometres (300 miles) southeast of Moscow.

He said the buildings were only slightly damaged, the inhabitants were offered temporary housing, and an evacuation was not required.

“Three (people) had cuts from fragments of broken windows, another four complained of high blood pressure,” he said.

Separately, Russia’s Defence Ministry said it intercepted and destroyed 85 Ukrainian drones overnight in several regions of the country, including 31 drones over the Black Sea, 16 each in the Voronezh and Krasnodar regions and 14 over the Azov Sea.

Russia’s aviation watchdog Rosaviatsia said airports in the cities of Kazan, Nizhnekamsk and Ulyanovsk in the Volga River regions temporarily suspended flights.

A flight suspension in the city of Saratov was also later declared to ensure safety.

Kyiv’s Air Force said in a statement early on Saturday (January 11, 2025) that Russia launched 74 drones at Ukraine overnight, adding it had downed 47 of them, while 27 others disappeared from radars without reaching their targets.

Both sides in the Ukraine conflict have turned cheap commercial drones into deadly weapons and also increased their production.

Russian and Ukrainian soldiers alike have reported a visceral fear of drones, and both sides have used video footage of fatal drone strikes in their propaganda.

On Friday (January 10, 2025), Russia accused Ukraine of carrying out a missile strike on a supermarket in the Russian-controlled city of Donetsk in eastern Ukraine.

Russian law enforcement officers inspect a burnt-out car in the courtyard of residential buildings following a drone attack in the village of Sofyino, Moscow region, on November 10, 2024.
| Photo Credit: AFP

Russia and Ukraine both launched record drone attacks on each other overnight, as the Kremlin said it saw “positive signals” from U.S. president-elect Donald Trump over his desire to strike a deal to end the conflict.

Mr. Trump’s election to the White House has the potential to upend the almost three-year conflict and has thrown into question Washington’s multi-billion dollar support for Kyiv, crucial to its defence.

The Republican said on the campaign trail that he could end the fighting within hours and has indicated he will talk directly with Russian President Vladimir Putin — a major break from the approach struck by President Joe Biden.

Mr. Trump will not be inaugurated until January and for the moment on the battlefield and in the skies, the conflict shows no signs of subsiding.

Russia fired 145 drones at Ukraine overnight, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said — more than in any single night-time attack of the conflict so far.

“Last night, Russia launched a record 145 Shaheds and other strike drones against Ukraine,” Mr. Zelenskyy said on social media, urging Kyiv’s Western allies to do more to help Ukraine’s defence.

Russia also said it had downed 34 Ukrainian attack drones targeting Moscow on Sunday (November 10, 2024), the largest attempted attack on the capital since the start of the offensive in 2022.

‘Positive signals’

While having publicly claimed to be backing Kamala Harris in the U.S. election, the Kremlin is widely believed to have actually wanted to see Trump return to the White House, welcoming his scepticism over American aid to Ukraine and his chaotic leadership style.

“The signals are positive. Trump during his election campaign talked about how he perceives everything through deals, that he can make a deal that can lead to peace,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said in an interview with state media published Sunday (November 10, 2024).

“At least he’s talking about peace, and not about confrontation. He isn’t talking about his wish to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia — that distinguishes him from the current administration,” Mr. Peskov added.

But he warned about Mr. Trump’s unpredictability, and said time would tell whether his victory could bring about an end to the Ukraine conflict.

“What will happen next, it’s hard to say,” Mr. Peskov said, adding that Mr. Trump was “less predictable” than Ms. Harris and Mr. Biden.

“It’s also less predictable to what extent he will stick to the statements that he made on the campaign trail,” Mr. Peskov added.

Mr. Trump has not said how he intends to strike a peace deal or what terms he is proposing.

Russia’s President Putin has demanded Ukraine withdraw from swathes of its eastern and southern territory as a precondition to peace talks.

Following Mr. Trump’s election, Mr. Zelenskyy warned there should be “no concessions” to Mr. Putin, saying ceding land or giving in to any of his other hardline demands would only embolden the Kremlin and lead to more aggression.

Mr. Zelenskyy has also previously warned that without U.S. aid Kyiv would lose the war.

‘Massive’ attack

Talk of a U.S.-brokered deal comes with Russia advancing on the battlefield.

Moscow’s troops made their largest territorial gains in October since March 2022, according to AFP analysis of data from the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW).

Moscow’s Defence Ministry claimed Sunday (November 10, 2024) to have captured another village in Ukraine’s east.

Kyiv’s attempted drone strike on Moscow was its largest attack on the Russian capital of the conflict, with Moscow region governor Andrei Vorobyov calling it “massive”.

It forced the temporary closure of three airports, wounded a 52-year-old woman and set two homes on fire in the village of Stanovoye in the Moscow region, officials said.

While the Ukrainian capital Kyiv is regularly targeted by massive Russian drone and missile strikes, attacks on Moscow are much less frequent.

The Defence Ministry said Russia’s air defence had downed a total of 70 Ukrainian drones between 0400 GMT and 0700 GMT over six regions.

It said 34 were downed over the Moscow region and the rest over Bryansk, Orlov, Kaluga, Tula and Kursk.

In the Moscow region, local officials said the drones were downed in the Ramenskoye, Kolomna and Domodedovo districts.

In the previous largest drone attack on or near Moscow in September, a woman was killed in Ramenskoye — the first time someone has been killed in a Ukrainian attack near the capital.

In May 2023, two drones were destroyed near the Kremlin and in the same year there were several drone attacks on the Moscow City business district.

Smoke rises after recent Russian air strikes, near a memorial to soldiers who died in World War Two, in the town of Toretsk, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, near a front line in Donetsk region, Ukraine July 3, 2024. Image used for representative purpose only.
| Photo Credit: REUTERS

A village in a border region of western Russia was evacuated on July 7 following a series of explosions after debris from a downed Ukrainian drone set fire to a nearby warehouse, local officials said.

Social media footage appeared to show rising clouds of black smoke in the Voronezh region while loud explosions could be heard in succession.

Governor Aleksandr Gusev said that falling wreckage triggered the “detonation of explosive objects”. No casualties were reported, but residents of a nearby village in the Podgorensky district were evacuated, he said. Roads were also closed with emergency services, military and government officials working at the scene.

A Ukrainian security official told The Associated Press that a strike had been carried out on a warehouse storing ammunition in the village of Serhiivka in the Voronezh region.

“The enemy stored surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles, shells for tanks and artillery, and boxes of cartridges for firearms,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to give the information to the media. “It is from this warehouse that the occupiers supply ammunition to their troops in Ukraine.”

The official also said that Ukraine’s State Security Service was behind a drone attack on an oil depot in Russia’s Krasnodar region the previous day. Russian emergency services had reported that falling drone debris had started a fire at the site, which was successfully extinguished Sunday morning.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence did not address either strike in their morning briefing, but said that air defence systems had destroyed a Ukrainian drone over the Belgorod region.

The strikes come after a Ukrainian military spokesperson told AP on Thursday that Kyiv’s troops had retreated from a neighbourhood on the outskirts of Chasiv Yar, a strategically important town in Ukraine’s Donetsk region that has been reduced to rubble under a month-long Russian assault.

Russian forces have for months tried to grind out gains in Ukraine’s industrial east, in an apparent attempt to lock its defenders into a war of attrition. In a joint investigation published Friday, independent Russian news outlets Meduza and Mediazona reported that Moscow’s forces were losing between 200 and 250 soldiers in Ukraine each day.

Military analysts say Chasiv Yar’s fall could also compromise critical Ukrainian supply routes and put nearby cities in jeopardy, bringing Russia closer to its stated aim of seizing the entire Donetsk region.

Russian strikes have also heavily targeted Ukraine’s energy infrastructure. Officials in Kyiv said Saturday that the city had restored two-thirds of its power generation capacity after recent Russian missile attacks destroyed key power plants.

“Colossal work has been carried out,” said deputy head of the Kyiv city administration Petro Panteleev. “The city’s energy facilities, which were built mainly in the Soviet period, are being modernized and become much more efficient.”

Russia sent overnight into Sunday two ballistic missiles and 13 Shahed drones, Ukrainian air force officials said. All were shot down but the officials did not elaborate on the impact of the missiles.

Eight people were killed in Russian attacks across Ukraine in the past day, according to local regional authorities.

Four people were killed in the Kherson region, said Gov Oleksandr Prokudin, while in Donetsk, Gov Vadym Filashkin said another two people had been killed in the towns of Niu-York and Ukrainsk. In Dnipropetrovsk, a 65-year-old woman was killed in a Russian attack in the Nikopol district, while a 47-year old man was killed in the Kharkiv region, Governors Serhii Lysak and Oleh Syniehubov said in their respective statements.

Elsewhere in Ukraine, 14 people died after a bus collided with a cargo vehicle, leaving a single survivor, Interior Minister Ihor Klymenko said Saturday evening. The victims included a 6-year-old child.

Russian air defenses shot down 31 Ukrainian drones during a concerted nighttime attack by Kyiv’s forces on border regions, the Russian Defense Ministry said October 4, even as uncertainty grew over Ukraine’s future access to weapons and ammunition from its Western allies.

The drone attack appeared to be Kyiv’s largest single cross-border drone assault reported by Moscow since it launched its invasion 20 months ago.

Ukraine is pressing on with a slow-moving counteroffensive it launched three months ago, though mounting concerns about replenishing its military stocks cast a cloud over its efforts

Also Read: Ukraine says it downed 29 Russia-launched drones, one cruise missile

Adm. Rob Bauer, the head of NATO’s Military Committee, sounded the alarm about depleted stockpiles.

With the war of attrition likely continuing through winter into next year, Bauer said of weapons systems and ammunition supplies: “The bottom of the barrel is now visible.”

He urged the defense industry to boost production “at a much higher tempo. And we need large volumes,” he told the Warsaw Security Forum, an annual two-day conference that continued October 4.

The Russian Defense Ministry didn’t provide any evidence for its claims about intercepting Ukrainian drones nor any details about whether there were any damage or casualties.

It also said Russian aircraft thwarted a Ukrainian attempt to deploy a group of soldiers by sea to the western side of Russian-annexed Crimea.

Also Read: Putin marks anniversary of annexation of Ukrainian regions as drones attack overnight

The force attempted to land on Cape Tarkhankut, on Crimea’s western end, using a high-speed boat and three jet skis, the Ministry said.

Moscow’s claims could not be independently verified, and Ukrainian officials made no immediate comment.

The Crimean Peninsula, which Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014, has been a frequent target of Ukrainian attacks. The region has been the key hub supporting the invasion.

Fears over the resupply of Ukraine’s armed forces have deepened in recent weeks.

The Pentagon has warned Congress that it is running low on money to replace weapons the U.S. has sent to Ukraine.

Concern about the commitment of Kyiv’s allies has also grown amid political turmoil in the United States amid the unprecedented and dramatic ouster Tuesday of House Speaker Kevin McCarthy.

Some in the House Republican majority, and many GOP voters, oppose sending more military aid to Ukraine. The U.S. is by far Ukraine’s largest military supplier.

Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, publicly questioned the motives of what he called “Western conservative elites.”

“Why are you so insistently against… destroying the Russian army, which has been terrifying,” he wrote on X, formerly Twitter.

The funding concerns prompted U.S. President Joe Biden to hold a phone call Tuesday with key allies in Europe, as well as the leaders of Canada and Japan, to coordinate support for Ukraine.

The call came three days after Biden signed legislation hastily sent to him by Congress that kept the federal government funded but left off billions in funding for Ukraine’s war effort that the White House had vigorously backed.