Officials say multiple military airbases deep inside Russia have come under drone attacks in a major Ukrainian operation ahead of peace talksย due to start in Istanbul on Monday.
The Russian Defence Ministry said Ukraine had launched drone strikes targeting Russian military airfields across five regions on Sunday, causing several aircraft to catch fire.
The attacks occurred in the Murmansk, Irkutsk, Ivanovo, Ryazan, and Amur regions. Air defences repelled the assaults in all but two regions โ Murmansk and Irkutsk, the ministry said.
โIn the Murmansk and Irkutsk regions, the launch of FPV drones from an area in close proximity to airfields resulted in several aircraft catching fire,โ the ministry said.
The fires were extinguished and no casualties were reported. Some individuals involved in the attacks had been detained, the ministry said.
The Security Service of Ukraine said on Sunday that it had hit Russian military planes worth a combined $7bn in a wave of drone strikes on Russian air bases thousands of kilometres behind the front lines.
โ$7 billion: This is the estimated cost of the enemyโs strategic aviation, which was hit today as a result of the SBUโs special operation,โ the agency said in a social media post.
Targets included the Belaya airbase in Irkutsk, about 4,300km (2,700 miles) from the Ukrainian border, and the Olenya airbase in south Murmansk, some 1,800km (1,100 miles) from Ukraine.
โAccording to witnesses on the ground and local officials, these drones were launched from sites near the airbases. That means this was an elaborate operation โฆ that involved a number of people inside Russia,โ Al Jazeeraโs Dorsa Jabbari said, reporting from Moscow.
โThis is the single largest attack that weโve seen in one day across multiple military airbases inside Russia since the war began in February of 2022,โ Jabbari said, noting that the airbases are home to Russiaโs strategic air bombers, which have been used to attack targets across Ukraine over the past three years.
Earlier on Sunday, multiple local media reports in Ukraine, including those by state news agency Ukrinform, cited a source within the SBU saying the coordinated attacks inside Russia were โaimed at destroying enemy bombers far from the frontโ.
They said the operation was carried out by the SBU using drones smuggled deep into Russia and hidden inside trucks. At least 41 Russian heavy bombers at four airbases were hit, the reports said, adding that the operation, dubbed โSpiderwebโ, had been prepared for over a year and a half, and it was personally overseen by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.
Al Jazeeraโs John Hendren, reporting from Kyiv, said itโs โan audacious strike, one that Ukraine has been waiting a long time and patiently to deliver, and itโs come after Russian air strikes into Ukraine have dramatically accelerated over the past couple of weeksโ.
Meanwhile, at least seven people were killed and 69 injured when a highway bridge in Russiaโs Bryansk region, neighbouring Ukraine, was blown up while a passenger train heading to Moscow was crossing it with 388 people on board.
No one has yet claimed responsibility. Russian officials said they were treating the incident as an โact of terrorismโ but did not immediately accuse Ukraine.
The developments came as Russia also said it had advanced deeper into the Sumy region of Ukraine, and as open-source pro-Ukrainian maps showed Russia took 450sq km (174sq miles) of Ukrainian land in May, its fastest monthly advance in at least six months.
Moscow launched 472 drones at Ukraine overnight, Ukraineโs Air Force said, the highest nightly total of the war so far. Russia had also launched seven missiles, the Air Force said.
Both parties sharply ramped up their attacks as Ukraine confirmed it will send a delegation to Istanbul led by its Defence Minister Rustem Umerov for talks on Monday with Russian officials. Turkiye is hosting the meeting, which was spurred by US President Donald Trumpโs push for a quick deal to end the three-year war.
Zelenskyy, who previously voiced scepticism about the seriousness of the Russian side in engaging in Mondayโs meeting, said he had defined the Ukrainian delegationโs position on the talks.
Priorities included โa complete and unconditional ceasefireโ and the return of prisoners and abducted children, he said on social media.
Russia has said it has formulated its own peace terms, but refused to divulge them in advance. Russian President Vladimir Putin also ruled out a Turkish proposal for the meeting to be held at the leadersโ level.
