Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in his evening address, said that 117 drones had been used in the operation. He claimed the operation had been headquartered out of an office next to the local FSB headquarters. The FSB is the Russian intelligence and security service.
Ukraine's Security Service confirmed on Sunday that a Ukrainian drone attack has destroyed more than 40 Russian planes deep in the foreign territory, while Moscow launched the 472 drones against Ukraine, marking as the biggest drone attack since the full-scale invasion in February 2022.
The drone attack came the same day as Zelenskyy said Ukraine is scheduled to send a delegation to Istanbul for a new round of direct peace talks with Russia on Monday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in his evening address, said that 117 drones had been used in the operation. He claimed the operation had been headquartered out of an office next to the local FSB headquarters. The FSB is the Russian intelligence and security service.
The social media footage shared by Russian media appeared to show the drones rising from inside containers while other panels lay discarded on the road.
One clip appeared to show men climbing onto a truck in an attempt to halt the drones.
A military official, who spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity to disclose operational details, said the far-reaching attack took more than a year and a half to execute and was personally supervised by .
The military official reportedly said it was an "extremely complex" operation, involving the smuggling of first-person view, or FPV, drones to Russia, where they were then placed in mobile wooden houses.
"Later, drones were hidden under the roofs of these houses while already placed on trucks. At the right moment, the roofs of the houses were remotely opened, and the drones flew to hit Russian bombers," he was quoted by AP.
AP reported that the drones hit 41 planes stationed at military airfields on Sunday afternoon, including A-50, Tu-95 and Tu-22M aircraft.
Moscow has previously used Tupolev Tu-95 and Tu-22 long-range bombers to launch missiles at Ukraine, while A-50s are used to coordinate targets and detect air defenses and guided missiles.
The Security Service of Ukraine has reportedly said that the operation, which it codenamed "Web", had destroyed 34 per cent of Russia's fleet of air missile carriers with damages estimated at $7 billion, reported AP.
Russia's Defense Ministry in a statement confirmed the attacks, which damaged aircraft and sparked fires on air bases in the Irkutsk region, more than 4,000 kilometers (2,500 miles) from Ukraine, as well as the Murmansk region in the north, it said. Strikes were also repelled in the Amur region in Russia's Far East and in the western regions of Ivanovo and Ryazan, the ministry said.
Also on Sunday, Russia's top investigative body said that explosions had caused two bridges to collapse and derailed two trains in western Russia overnight, killing seven in one of the incidents and injuring dozens more. Russian officials, however, did not say what had caused the blasts and the word "explosions" was later removed from an Investigative Committee press release.
U.S. Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth was briefed on Ukraine's attack Russia during a stop at Nellis Air Force Base and was monitoring the situation. A senior defense official said on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters that the U.S. was not given notification before the attack. The official said it represented a level of sophistication the U.S. had not seen before.
In a statement on Telegram, Zelenskyy said that Defense Minister Rustem Umerov will lead the Ukrainian delegation. "We are doing everything to protect our independence, our state and our people," Zelenskyy said.
Ukrainian officials had previously called on the Kremlin to provide a promised memorandum setting out its position on ending the war before the meeting takes place. Moscow had said it would share its memorandum during the talks.
Russia on Sunday launched the biggest number of drones 바카라” 472 바카라” on Ukraine since the full-scale invasion in February 2022, Ukraine's air force said.
Russian forces also launched seven missiles alongside the barrage of drones, said Yuriy Ignat, head of communications for the air force. Earlier Sunday, Ukraine's army said at least 12 Ukrainian service members were killed and more than 60 were injured in a Russian missile strike on an army training unit.
Ukrainian army commander Mykhailo Drapatyi later Sunday submitted his resignation following the attack. He was a respected commander whose leadership saw Ukraine regain land on the eastern front for the first time since Kyiv's 2022 counteroffensive.
The training unit was located to the rear of the 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) active front line, where Russian reconnaissance and strike drones are able to strike. Ukraine's forces lack troops and take extra precautions to avoid mass gatherings as the skies across the front line are saturated with Russian drones looking for targets.
(With AP inputs)