Russia and Ukraine traded massive drone attacks on Tuesday and Wednesday as Russian forces in eastern Ukraine appear to have launched a new spring offensive, as much of the world’s attention is on the US-Israeli war against Iran in the Middle East.
The Russian military bombarded Ukraine with drones overnight Monday into Tuesday and during the day on Tuesday, launching nearly 1,000 drones in a 24-hour period, killing at least seven people across the country.
On Wednesday, the Russian Defense Ministry reported that its forces shot down 389 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions. Russia’s TASS news agency described it as the largest Ukrainian drone attack on Russian territory yet. Several residential buildings were damaged by the barrage, but no casualties were reported.
The governor of Russia’s Belgorod Oblast said there was “serious damage” to energy infrastructure, and that power outages affected nearly half a million people in the region. In Ukraine, around 150,000 people in Chernihiv were reported to be without power.
The massive drone attacks come as the Russian military appears to be making a major push in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, as the peace process aimed at ending the war that has been raging for more than four years has been stalled.
US and Ukrainian officials held talks in Florida over the weekend, but there was no sign of any breakthrough. The Donbas has been one of the major sticking points in the negotiations as Russian President Vladimir Putin has demanded that Ukraine cede the territory it still controls in the region, a condition that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has rejected.
