In one of the most extensive aerial interception efforts reported since the outset of the war, Russia announced Monday that it had shot down 162 Ukrainian drones overnight.
The Russian Ministry of Defence stated that the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) were neutralized between 5:10 p.m. and 11:00 p.m. GMT on Sunday, with the bulk of the interceptions occurring in border regions — including 57 drones downed over the Kursk region and 31 over Belgorod.
The timing of the announcement is significant, coming just hours before Russian and Ukrainian delegations were scheduled to meet in Istanbul for a renewed round of peace talks.
The negotiations, hosted by Turkey, mark a fresh attempt to de-escalate tensions and potentially broker a ceasefire, over two years after Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Moscow’s report of the large-scale drone defense operation follows Kyiv’s own high-profile claim over the weekend. Ukrainian forces said they had successfully carried out a deep strike against Russian strategic bomber bases — targeting aircraft stationed hundreds of kilometers from the front lines.
Independent verification of the exact scale of damage remains limited, but the operation has been widely viewed as a bold demonstration of Ukraine’s expanding strike capabilities.
While Russia has previously reported intercepting swarms of Ukrainian drones, the sheer scale of this latest engagement 162 in a single evening suggests an intensifying phase in the drone warfare component of the conflict.
For context, previous drone attacks on Russian territory have rarely involved more than a few dozen UAVs at a time, according to open-source monitoring and Western intelligence estimates.
Ukraine has not issued an official response to Moscow’s latest claims, though it has increasingly relied on drone technology for asymmetric warfare, leveraging domestically produced UAVs and repurposed commercial drones to target military infrastructure deep inside Russian territory.
As both sides dig in for what appears to be a protracted conflict, Sunday’s drone assault and Monday’s diplomatic overtures paint a stark picture: a war that continues to evolve on the battlefield even as diplomacy is tentatively reintroduced at the negotiating table.
