Night Drone War: Russia Intercepts 60 Ukrainian UAVs

Russian air defenses have repelled a large-scale Ukrainian drone attack targeting multiple regions across the country.

On Tuesday, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that its air defense systems had shot down 60 Ukrainian drones overnight across various territories.

In a statement, the ministry said: “Our air defense systems operating overnight destroyed 60 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles.”

The downed drones were spread across several regions: 7 over Crimea, 16 in the Rostov region, 11 over the Sea of Azov, 5 in Kursk, 4 in Saratov, 3 over the Black Sea, 2 in Belgorod, and one each in the Voronezh and Oryol regions.

The Ukrainian armed forces have been regularly targeting Russian border regions—such as Crimea, Belgorod, Bryansk, Kursk, and Voronezh—with drone and missile attacks.

Kyiv deploys combat drones and artillery strikes against a variety of targets inside Russia. In response, Russian forces are striking Ukrainian military infrastructure, defense industry facilities, and any sites related to the storage, repair, or production of military equipment, as well as areas where Ukrainian troops are concentrated.

Separately, Russia’s Federal Security Service (FSB) announced on Tuesday the discovery of a hideout in Donetsk belonging to Ukrainian forces. The cache reportedly contained improvised explosive grenades designed for drone deployment, filled with the banned toxic substance chloropicrin.

In a statement, the FSB said that, in cooperation with the Russian Ministry of Defense, it had uncovered “a Ukrainian armed forces hideout near the village of Ilinka in the Kurakhovsky district of Donetsk.”

According to Russian authorities, the cache held improvised explosive devices meant to be dropped from drones, loaded with both explosives and the deadly chemical chloropicrin—a substance banned under the International Chemical Weapons Convention.