Russian drones, glide bombs, and ballistic missiles hammered cities in Ukraine’s south and east on Nov. 11, according to officials in the war-torn country.
At least six civilians were killed, and some 30 others were injured in the attacks, which came a day after the biggest exchange of drone sorties between Kyiv and Moscow since the war began.
Over the weekend, Russia launched its largest wave of drone attacks against its neighbor, with a record-breaking 145 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) sent over Ukraine.
Kyiv said it shot down 62 of those and attacked an arsenal in the Bryansk region of Russia, which reported that 14 drones had been downed in the region.
Sunday also saw a large flurry of drones despatched by Ukraine against Moscow, with at least 34 UAVs launched against the Russian capital, forcing flights to be diverted from three major airports and leaving some five people injured.
Russia’s defense ministry said it shot down a further 50 UAVs over western areas of the country that same day.
“An attempt by the Kyiv regime to carry out a terrorist attack using airplane-type drones on the territory of the Russian Federation was thwarted,” the ministry said in a statement.
Moscow’s Domodedovo, Sheremetyevo, and Zhukovsky airports diverted at least 36 flights during the attack but the airports were later reopened, according to Russia’s federal air transport agency.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Russia has recently intensified strikes, in what he says is an effort to wear down Ukrainians’ will to fight on.
“Every day, every night, Russia commits the same terror, except that an increasing number of civilian objects are becoming targets,” he said in a message on Telegram.
The three major cities struck by Russia on Monday are close to the war’s 600-mile front line.
Mykolaiv, located around 37 miles from the front in Kherson Oblast, saw five people killed and another injured, according to local authorities.
Zaporizhzhia, too, was struck by three powerful glide bombs, killing one person and injuring another 21, Ukraine’s National Police said.
A five-story apartment building in Zelenskyy’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih in Dnipropetrovsk Oblast was also hit by a Russian ballistic missile, injuring at least eight.
According to Oleksandr Vikul, head of the Kryviy Rih Military Administration, emergency services were searching the rubble in the central Ukrainian city.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian intelligence claimed it destroyed a Russian Mi-24 assault helicopter parked at the Klin-5 airfield in the Moscow region.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said that 17 Ukrainian drones were destroyed over the Russian regions of Kursk, Belgorod, and Voronezh overnight and in the morning on Monday.
The escalation in drone warfare comes amid a changing of the guard in Washington, prompting both sides to prepare for a potential shift in America’s stance on the conflict.
President-elect Donald Trump, who will return to the White House on Jan. 20, repeatedly claimed throughout his campaign that he would bring peace to Ukraine within 24 hours, but so far has not elaborated on how this would be achieved.
Following reports in the media from unnamed sources that Trump, following his election win, had a phone conversation with Russian President Vladimir Putin, which The Epoch Times was not able to independently verify, Moscow denied there had been any contact between the two men, with Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov telling reporters: “This is completely untrue. This is pure fiction, it’s just false information. There was no conversation.”
The Epoch Times contacted the office of the President-elect for comment but received no reply by publication time.
The all-out war between the two nations is fast approaching the grim milestone of 1,000 days of conflict, with the number of days that have elapsed since Moscow’s full-scale invasion now numbering 992.
