Russia batters Ukraine with more than 700 drones, the largest barrage of the war, officials say

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – Russia fired more than 700 attack and decoy drones at Ukraine overnight, topping previous nightly barrages for the third time in two weeks, part of Moscow’s intensifying aerial and ground assault in the three-year war, Ukrainian officials said Wednesday.

Russia has recently sought to overwhelm Ukraine’s air defenses by launching major attacks that include increasing numbers of decoy drones. The most recent one appeared aimed at disrupting Ukraine’s vital supply of Western weapons.

The city of Lutsk, home to airfields used by the Ukrainian army, was the hardest hit, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. It lies near the border with Poland in western Ukraine, a region that is a crucial hub for receiving foreign military aid.

The attack comes at a time of increased uncertainty over the supply of crucial American weapons and as U.S.-led peace efforts have stalled. Zelenskyy said that the Kremlin was “making a point” with it.

The Russian Defense Ministry said its forces took aim at Ukrainian air bases and that “all the designated targets have been hit.” Meanwhile, Ukraine fired drones into Russia overnight, killing three people, officials said.

The Russian attack, which included 728 drones and 13 missiles, had the largest number of drones fired in a single night in the war. On Friday, Russia fired 550 drones, less than a week after it launched 477, both the largest at the time, officials said.

Beyond Lutsk, 10 regions were struck. One person was killed in the Khmelnytskyi region, and two wounded in the Kyiv region, officials said.

Poland, a member of NATO, scrambled its fighter jets and put its armed forces on the highest level of alert in response to the attack, the Polish Armed Forces Operational Command wrote in an X post.

Russia’s bigger army has also launched a new drive to punch through parts of the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line, where short-handed Ukrainian forces are under heavy strain.

U.S. President Donald Trump said Tuesday that he was “not happy” with Russian President Vladimir Putin, who hasn’t budged from his ceasefire and peace demands since Trump took office in January and began to push for a settlement.

Trump said Monday that the U.S. would have to send more weapons to Ukraine, just days after Washington paused critical weapons deliveries to Kyiv.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Trump “has quite a tough style in terms of the phrasing he uses,” adding that Moscow hopes to “continue our dialogue with Washington and our course aimed at repairing the badly damaged bilateral ties.”

Zelenskyy, meanwhile, urged Ukraine’s partners to impose stricter sanctions on Russian oil and those who help finance the Kremlin’s war by buying it.

“Everyone who wants peace must act,” Zelenskyy said. The Ukrainian leader met Pope Leo XIV on Wednesday during a visit to Italy ahead of an international conference on rebuilding Ukraine.

Ukraine’s air defenses shot down 296 drones and seven missiles during the overnight attack, while 415 more drones were lost from radars or jammed, an air force statement said.

Ukrainian interceptor drones, developed to counter the Shahed ones fired by Russia, are increasingly effective, Zelenskyy said, adding that domestic production of anti-aircraft drones is being scaled up in partnership with some Western countries.

Western military analysts say Russia is also boosting its drone manufacturing and could soon be capable of launching 1,000 a night at Ukraine.

“Russia continues to expand its domestic drone production capacity amid the ever-growing role of tactical drones in front-line combat operations and Russia’s increasingly large nightly long-range strike packages against Ukraine,” the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, said late Tuesday.

Ukraine has also built up its own offensive drone threat, reaching deep into Russia with some long-range strikes.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said Wednesday that air defenses downed 86 Ukrainian drones over six Russian regions overnight, including the Moscow region.

Flights were temporarily suspended at Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport and the international airport of Kaluga, south of Moscow.

The governor of Russia’s Kursk border region, Alexander Khinshtein, said a Ukrainian drone attack on the region’s capital city just before midnight killed three people and wounded seven others, including a 5-year-old boy.

Meanwhile, Europe’s top human rights court ruled Wednesday that Russia had violated international law during the war in Ukraine, the first time an international court has found Moscow responsible for human rights abuses since the full-scale invasion in 2022.

The court also ruled Russia was behind the downing of Malaysia Airlines Flight 17, the first time Moscow was named by an international court as being responsible for the 2014 tragedy that claimed 298 lives. Any decision is largely symbolic.