Russia launched the largest single drone attack on Ukraine on Saturday night – the day before the third anniversary of the war, Ukrainian officials said.
The country’s Air Force Command spokesman Yuriy Ignat said a “record” 267 Russian drones were launched in a single, coordinated attack.
Thirteen regions were targeted and while many of the drones were repelled, those that were not caused destruction to infrastructure and at least three casualties, emergency services said.
Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky thanked Ukraine’s emergency services for their response to the attack and called for the support of Europe and US in facilitating “a lasting and just peace”.
Ukrainian officials said the number of drones launched over Saturday night was the highest figure in a single attack yet.
Ukraine’s Air Force reported that 138 were shot down and 119, which were decoy drones, were lost without negative consequences, likely due to jamming.
In Kyiv, the attack meant six hours of air alerts.
In a statement, Zelensky claimed that 1,150 drones, 1,400 bombs and 35 missiles were launched by Russia this week.
In a post on X, Ukraine’s First Lady Olena Zelenska said that “hundreds of drones” had “brought death and destruction” overnight.
According to the Ukrainian government and western intelligence, Russia has been using Iranian-made Shahed-136 drones – also known as “kamikaze” drones – since the autumn of 2022.
The drones were reported to have been used initially to attack military targets in the Kharkiv region, but have since been used to target population centres and energy infrastructure.
Iran has previously said it only supplied a “small number” of drones to Russia before the war, but the US and EU have accused Iran of sending regular deliveries of drones to Russia.
On Saturday, two people died in a strike on a residential building in Kherson, in southern Ukraine – a man and a mother of twins, the Ukrainian state emergency services said.
Regional authorities also confirmed that one man died and at least three were wounded following a strike on the central city of Kryvyi Rih.
Meanwhile, a 53-year-old woman was hospitalised after being injured in a drone attack in Zaporizhzhia, and firefighters were called to extinguish multiple fires in the capital, Kyiv.
Kyiv’s Mayor Vitali Kltischko wrote on Telegram that the multi-wave drone attacks on the capital had damaged several houses and cars but there were no immediate reports of injuries.
Drones were intercepted in at least 13 regions including Kharkiv, Poltava, Sumy, Kyiv, Chernihiv, Mykolayiv and Odesa, according to Ukrainian authorities.
The Ukrainian air force also reported that Russia launched three ballistic missiles overnight.
Meanwhile, Russia’s defence ministry said on Sunday that 20 Ukrainian drones launched into Russia were “destroyed” overnight.
On Monday, the war will enter its third year.
As it does, diplomatic wranglings over a potential peace deal continue, with Ukraine, European allies and the US offering differing visions for how to end the conflict.
The US and Russia held preliminary talks in Saudi Arabia this week – without delegates from Europe, including Ukraine, present – which resulted in European leaders holding a hastily-arranged summit in Paris.
Zelensky criticised Ukraine’s exclusion from the US-Russia talks, saying US President Donald Trump was “living in a disinformation space” governed by Moscow, prompting Trump to respond by calling the Ukrainian president a “dictator”.
French President Emmanuel Macron is expected to visit Washington on Monday, while UK Prime Minister Sir Keir Starmer will be there on Thursday.
Sir Keir has publicly backed Zelensky, reiterating the UK’s “ironclad support” for Kyiv, and said he would discuss the importance of Ukraine’s sovereignty when he speaks to Trump.
Pope Francis – who is in hospital with respiratory illness – wrote in a remarks released on Sunday that the third anniversary of the war was “a painful and shameful occasion for the whole of humanity”.
