Russia said it had intercepted and destroyed 1,198 Ukrainian drones in one of the largest-scale air attacks against the country since the beginning of the full-scale war in February 2022. According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, the attack was carried out between 20:00 on November 12 and 08:00 on November 13 Moscow time.
„During the past night, air defense systems intercepted and destroyed 1,198 Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles,“ the ministry said in a statement. The drones were directed at more than 15 Russian regions, Moscow, Crimea and the Black Sea.
The death toll on Russian territory increased over the course of the day. According to Russian regional authorities, four workers were killed in an industrial zone in the Volgograd region, where an oil refinery and a chemical plant are located. Two other people were injured.
Four people were killed in a strike on an industrial facility in the Samara region, while another person was killed in the Bryansk region, which borders Ukraine. This brought the total number of victims, according to the latest data from Russian authorities, to at least nine.
An earlier Associated Press report said that seven people had been killed and 17 injured in three Russian regions. The difference in the figures is related to updates to the data provided by local authorities.
New Russian strikes on Ukrainian cities
Ukrainian authorities reported a new Russian air attack on several regions. Two people were killed in Odesa, while a 17-year-old boy was killed in Zaporizhzhia. Four people were pulled from destroyed buildings during the subsequent rescue operations.
Two five-story residential buildings were hit in Zaporizhzhia, with 25 people reportedly injured, including six children, according to the Associated Press. In Kyiv, a Russian drone caused a fire at a hospital and injured one person. A kindergarten was affected in the northwestern city of Rivne, and six people sustained injuries.
Ukraine said that Russia had launched 117 drones at Ukrainian territory overnight. Air defenses shot down or jammed 80 of them, but impacts were recorded at 24 locations and falling debris at 10 others.
Strikes coincided with diplomatic talks
The large-scale exchange of airstrikes took place a day after the United States renewed its diplomatic efforts to end the war. U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner held talks in Moscow with Russian President Vladimir Putin, and then met Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky in Dublin.
The talks are aimed at a possible cessation of hostilities, but strikes on industrial facilities, energy infrastructure and residential areas continue. The latest attack shows that diplomatic contacts have so far failed to halt air operations by either side.