KYIV:
Ukraine said in a spectacular claim on Sunday it destroyed Russian bombers worth billions of dollars in a “large-scale” drone assault on enemy soil as it geared up for talks with Moscow counterparts to explore prospects for a ceasefire.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy praised the “absolutely brilliant” drone attack launched on Russian air bases, saying it inflicted tangible losses on Moscow. He said that 117 drones had been used to attack the Russian bases.
Ukraine said the strike on the eve of peace talks damaged $7 billion worth of Russian aircraft parked at four airbases thousands of kilometres away, with unverified video footage showing aircraft engulfed in flames and black smoke.
A source in the Ukrainian security services said the drones were concealed in the ceilings of shipping containers, which were opened up to release them for the assault. The long-planned operation came at a delicate moment three years into Russia’s invasion.
“An absolutely brilliant outcome. And an outcome produced by Ukraine independently,” Zelenskiy wrote on the Telegram messaging app and a video address. He noted the operation took more than a year and half to prepare. “This is our longest-range operation. Russia has had very tangible losses.”
Zelensky said that he was sending a delegation to Istanbul led by his Defence Minister Rustem Umerov for talks on Monday with Russian officials. Turkey is hosting the meeting, which was spurred by US President Donald Trump’s push for a quick deal to end the three-year war.
A source in Ukraine’s SBU security service said the coordinated attacks inside Russia were “aimed at destroying enemy bombers far from the front”. The SBU source added that the strikes targeted Russian airbases in the eastern Siberian city of Belaya, in Olenya, in the Arctic near Finland, and in Ivanovo and Dyagilevo, both east of Moscow.
More than 40 aircraft had been hit at the Belaya base and a fire had broken out there, the source said, showing a video in which several aircraft could be seen in flames and black smoke rising. AFP was not able to independently verify the claims or the video images.
Russia’s defence ministry confirmed on Telegram that several of its military aircraft “caught fire”. Rybar, an account on the Telegram message platform that is close to the Russian military, called it a “very heavy blow” for Moscow and pointed to what it called “serious errors” by Russian intelligence.
Russia’s defence ministry said that there were no casualties and that several “participants” had been arrested. Igor Kobzev, Governor of Russia’s Irkutsk region, which hosts the targeted Belaya airbase, said it was “the first attack of this sort in Siberia”.
On Sunday, Ukraine’s air force said it was hit by 472 Russian drones and seven missiles overnighta record since the beginning of the invasion.
In a rare admission of its military losses, the Ukraine army said Russia’s “missile strike on the location of one of the training units” had killed a dozen soldiers, most of whom had been in shelters during the attack, and wounded more than 60.
The attack led Ukrainian ground forces commander Mykhailo Drapaty to announce his resignation, saying he felt “responsibility” for the soldiers’ deaths.
Separately on Sunday, the Russian army said it had captured another village in Ukraine’s northern Sumy region, where Kyiv fears Moscow could mount a fresh ground assault. Russia claims to have captured several settlements in the region in recent weeks, and has massed more than 50,000 soldiers on the other side of the border, according to Zelensky.
Authorities in the region have evacuated more than 200 villages amid intensified shelling.
In Russia, officials said a blast brought down a road bridge in the Bryansk region bordering Ukraine on Saturday, derailing a passenger train heading to Moscow and killing seven people. A separate rail bridge in the neighbouring Kursk region was blown up hours later in the early hours of Sunday, derailing a freight train and injuring the driver.
Authorities did not say who was behind the explosions, but investigators said a criminal inquiry was underway.
