Russia and Ukraine trade long-range drone attacks as Putin says Moscow
is ready for new peace talks
[June 28, 2025]
By ILLIA NOVIKOV
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia and Ukraine exchanged more long-range drone
attacks that have become a staple of the more than three-year war,
officials said Friday, as Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow
is ready for a fresh round of direct peace talks in Istanbul.
Russian and Ukrainian officials are discussing the timing of a potential
new meeting, Putin said. Speaking to reporters during a visit to
Belarus, he said that the terms of a potential ceasefire, which the
Kremlin has so far effectively rejected, are expected to be on the
agenda.
The war shows no signs of abating as U.S.-led international peace
efforts have so far produced no breakthrough. Two recent rounds of talks
between Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Istanbul were brief and
yielded no progress on reaching a settlement.
Ukraine wants the next step in peace talks to be a meeting between
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Putin, Ukrainian Defense
Minister Rustem Umerov said.
A non-started suggestion
Given Putin’s recent comments, it's unclear how this will pan out. The
Russian leader has said a summit meeting should take place only after
the main provisions of a peace deal have been agreed, and that could
take months or years.
Putin has also repeated his claim that Zelenskyy lost his legitimacy
after his presidential term expired last year — an allegation rejected
by Kyiv and its allies.
Meanwhile, Russian forces launched 363 Shahed and decoy drones as well
as eight missiles at Ukraine overnight, the Ukrainian air force said
Friday, claiming that air defenses stopped all but four of the drones
and downed six cruise missiles.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said 39 Ukrainian drones were downed in
several regions overnight, including 19 over the Rostov region and 13
over the Volgograd region. Both regions lie east of Ukraine.
Ukraine’s General Staff said later on Friday that four military aircraft
stationed at the Marinovka airfield in the Volgograd region had been
destroyed during a mission involving Special Forces and Ukrainian
intelligence overnight.
“Four enemy aircraft, namely Su-34s, and a technical and operational
unit, where various combat aircraft are serviced and repaired, were
destroyed,” according to a preliminary assessment posted online.
The AP couldn't independently verify the claim. Russian officials did
not immediately comment, nor did they mention the Marinovka airfield in
public statements about the overnight drone attack on the region.
Volgograd Gov. Andrei Bocharov, however, on Friday morning listed the
region's Kalanchyovsky district where Marinovka is located among three
areas targeted by Ukrainian drones.
Bocharov said that traffic on the bridge over the Don River in the
Kalachyovsky district was temporarily restricted, but didn't offer any
other details.
Drones are ubiquitous in the war
Long-range drone strikes have been a hallmark of the war, now in its
fourth year. The race by both sides to develop increasingly
sophisticated and deadlier drones has turned the war into a testing
ground for new weaponry.
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Visitors look at a damaged Iranian-made drone, Shahed, during the
International Conference on Expanding Sanctions Against Russia in
Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, June 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)
Ukrainian drones have pulled off some stunning feats. At the start
of June, nearly a third of Moscow’s strategic bomber fleet was
destroyed or damaged in a covert Ukrainian operation using cheaply
made drones sneaked into Russian territory.
The Ukrainian air force said that 359 incoming drones were either
intercepted or electronically jammed.
Ukraine is employing new countermeasures against Russia’s escalation
of combined missile and drone attacks, officials say. Instead of
relying on ground-based mobile teams to shoot down Shaheds, Ukraine
is deploying interceptor drones it has developed.
The Ukrainian attack forced three Russian airports to briefly
suspend flights, officials said. The authorities also briefly closed
the Crimean Bridge overnight as drones targeted Crimea.
Neither Russia nor Ukraine reported any major damage or casualties
in the attacks.
Russia manufactures Shahed drones based on an original Iranian
model, churning out thousands of them at a plant in the Tatarstan
region. It has upgraded the Shaheds with its own innovations,
including bigger warheads.
They are known as suicide drones because they nosedive into targets
and explode on impact, like a missile. The incessant buzzing of the
propeller-driven Shahed drones is unnerving for anyone under its
flight path because no one on the ground knows exactly when or where
the weapon will hit.
Being outgunned and outnumbered in the war against its bigger
neighbor, Ukraine also has developed its own cutting-edge drone
technology, including long-range sea drones, and has trained
thousands of drone pilots.
Smaller, short-range drones are used by both sides on the
battlefield and in areas close to the roughly 1,000-kilometer
(620-mile) front line.
Those drones, fitted with onboard cameras that give their operators
a real-time view of possible targets, have also struck civilian
areas.
The U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said in a report
published Thursday that short-range drone attacks killed at least
395 civilians and injured 2,635 between the start of the war and
last April. Almost 90% of the attacks were by the Russian armed
forces, it reported.
The strikes not only spread fear among civilians but also severely
disrupt daily life by restricting movement and limiting access to
food and medical services, the report said.
___
Associated Press writer Samya Kullab in Kyiv, Ukraine, contributed
to this report.
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