Russia's air defence units destroyed and intercepted 130 Ukrainian drones during the night over Russian regions, state news agency TASS reported on Thursday, citing daily data from the Russian defence ministry.
Meanwhile, Kiev’s top military commander said on Wednesday that the Russian army overran three settlements in the southern Zaporizhzhia region of Ukraine.
Dense fog enabled Russian troops to infiltrate Ukrainian positions in Zaporizhzhia, Gen Oleksandr Syrskyi wrote on the messaging app Telegram, adding that Ukrainian units are locked in “grueling battles” to repel Russia.
He noted, however, that the fiercest battles are still in the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk, in the eastern Donetsk region, where close to half of all front-line clashes took place over the previous 24 hours.
The cities of Kupiansk and Lyman in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region have also recently witnessed an uptick in combat.
New US sanctions that take aim at Russia’s oil sector, which is the mainstay of the Russian economy, are due to come into force on November 21. Their purpose is to compel Russian President Vladimir Putin to accept a ceasefire.
Over the past four weeks, the Russian defence ministry has reported capturing nine settlements and villages in Donetsk: eight in the Zaporizhzhia region, seven in the Dnipropetrovsk region and five in the Kharkiv region.
The Institute for the Study of War said Russia’s siege of Pokrovsk, where it has deployed elite drone operators and “spetsnaz” special forces soldiers, has been slow-moving because its military commanders are spreading their resources widely.
Ukraine, meanwhile, has launched sustained long-range drone attacks on high-value military-related assets inside Russia.
Its latest attack hit the Stavrolen chemical plant in Budionnovsk, in the Stavropol region of Russia, overnight, according to the general staff. The plant produces polymers for composite materials used by the Russian military, it said.
