Russia, Ukraine trade more long-range drone attacks

Kyiv: Russian forces launched 363 Shahed and decoy drones as well as eight missiles at Ukraine overnight, the Ukrainian air force said on Friday, claiming that air defences stopped all but four of the drones and downed six cruise missiles.

Russia’s Defence Ministry, meanwhile, said that 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.

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.

The Ukrainian air force said that 359 incoming drones were either intercepted or electronically jammed.

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.

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.