Russia launched almost 500 drones and missiles at Ukraine overnight, Ukrainian forces said on Monday, in the largest in a string of record-breaking aerial assaults as peace talks stall.
Despite pressure from the Trump administration to work toward a cease-fire, Russia has been stepping up its large-scale barrages in recent months. That effort has further escalated since Ukraine mounted coordinated drone strikes strategic bombers at air bases inside Russia on June 1.
While there were no reports of major damage and only one person was killed, the scale of Russia’s aerial assault was the latest step in a campaign by Moscow to overwhelm and deplete Ukrainian air defenses — one with no end in sight given a lack of progress in peace negotiations.
While mounting a new offensive on the ground in eastern Ukraine, Russia has been setting deadly records with the swarms of drones and missiles it launches at Ukraine, often hitting civilian targets in towns and cities across the country. Some records have lasted just a few days before being broken.
Russia has dramatically increased the pace of such attacks this year, reflecting its sharply accelerating production of attack drones. But for months it would launch a maximum 300 or so of them in a single night.
Then early on June 1, the Ukrainian Air Force said that Russia had launched 472 drones and seven missiles overnight. Ukrainian officials called it the largest combined aerial assault on the country since the start of the war.
Before dawn on June 5, Russia launched 407 drones and decoys, nearly 40 cruise missiles and six ballistic missiles at towns and cities across Ukraine — an assault that Moscow described as retaliation for the strikes on Russian air bases. That attack ranked as the second-largest of the war.
Then on Monday, the Ukrainian Air Force said Russia had launched 479 drones and 20 missiles overnight, setting a new record for the largest drone barrage since the war began more than three years ago. Most were intercepted, but 10 strikes were recorded, according to the Air Force.
One person was killed in the Rivne region of western Ukraine and a Russian strike damaged a private home in the Kyiv region, according to the local authorities. Officials in the Sumy region, in the northeast, said that nine people had been injured over the past day. There were no other immediate reports of further damage or casualties.
As Russia has escalated aerial attacks, it also has been stepping up frontline assaults and has opened a new front in northeastern Ukraine.
But Ukraine has continued to try to take the war to Russia, including with the attack on Russian air bases and with further drone strikes deep inside the country.
The Russian Defense Ministry said on Monday that its air defenses had destroyed or jammed 49 Ukrainian drones overnight. Rosaviatsia, Russia’s aviation regulator, reported that four airports in the center of the country had temporarily suspended operations overnight because of security concerns.
Ukraine’s military claimed it had targeted a Russian airfield in the Nizhny Novgorod region and a facility in Cheboksary, both east of Moscow. Those claims could not immediately be confirmed independently.
The attacks came despite efforts by the Trump administration to cajole both sides toward a cease-fire. Those talks have sputtered: The latest round of talks between the two sides, earlier this month in Istanbul, yielded little result apart from another agreement to swap prisoners.
Later on Monday, the Russian Defense Ministry said that an exchange was underway. Without specifying numbers, the ministry said in a statement that Russia had received “the first group” of Russian troops and had sent an equal number to the Ukrainian side.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine confirmed that a swap of “the wounded, the severely wounded, and those under the age of 25” had begun, adding that the exchange would continue “in several stages over the coming days.”
“Ukrainians are returning home from Russian captivity,” he wrote on social media.
Anastasia Kuznietsova contributed reporting.
Maria Varenikova covers Ukraine and its war with Russia.
Ivan Nechepurenko covers Russia, Ukraine, Belarus, the countries of the Caucasus, and Central Asia.
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