Russia said Monday that Ukraine launched a large-scale drone attack on Russian territory ahead of this week’s NATO summit in Türkiye to showcase its military capabilities to Western allies, warning that Moscow would respond with more powerful strikes.
The Defense Ministry said in a statement that the Ukrainian military launched 625 long-range attack drones on targets outside the combat zone overnight Sunday to Monday, adding that 613 drones were intercepted or destroyed over Russian territory.
"The purpose of this attack was (Ukraine's President Volodymyr) Zelenskyy's attempt, on the eve of the NATO summit in Ankara, to demonstrate to his European sponsors, including the UK, his readiness to strike civilian targets in Russia using resources financed by them," the ministry said.
According to the statement, the main targets of the drone attack were civilian fuel and energy infrastructure and logistics facilities in the Leningrad, Bryansk, Belgorod, Yaroslavl, Kaluga, and Kursk regions, as well as Crimea.
It added that while several civilian facilities sustained damage, they would be restored.
The ministry also confirmed that Russia carried out overnight retaliatory strikes, targeting Ukrainian military industry enterprises and military-related fuel and energy infrastructure in Kyiv and the Kyiv region.
The ministry further warned that increased Western military assistance to Ukraine, including drones, missiles and ammunition supplied by European countries and the UK, would "not go unnoticed" and would be met with "a corresponding increase in the number and power" of Russian retaliatory strikes against targets in Ukraine.
In a separate statement, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said the Ukrainian capital came under the most powerful strike in recent times.
"The most massive attack ... on the capital," he wrote on Telegram.
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