An attack of Ukrainian drones stopped flights to airports through a wide range of Russia during the night Tuesday, said Russian officials, showing Kiev's ability to hit Russian territory before a scheduled parade in Moscow to commemorate the 80th anniversary of the end of the world war in Europe.
The aerial defenses responded to flight shooting in at least 11 regions, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense. The attack closed 13 airports, including all four main airports that Moscow is needed, according to a Russian aviation agency. Flights resumed on Tuesday morning.
The Ukrainian authorities did not comment on the strikes.
It was not clear if the burst was destined to threaten the parade, because Kiev usually shot in Russia with long -haul drones, responding to the Russian night bombing of Ukraine. On Tuesday, Russian drones hit the cities of Sumy, Kharkiv and Odesa, killing four people and injuring at least another 24, according to local officials.
Russia said that about 20 heads of state including Chinese president, Xi Jinping, accepted invitations to the parade, in the red square, Friday; President Vladimir V. Putin asked for a three -day respite at war for the occasion.
Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky president has rejected this proposal unless Russia accepts to extend any ceased for at least 30 days, defining the shortest truce too limited. He also said that the ceased the fire was offered only to put the guests of the parade at ease.
The United States supported the 30 -day truce. But President Trump on Monday characterized the Russian offer as a step forward.
“President Putin has just announced a three -day fire, who doesn't seem much, but it's very much if you knew where we started from,” Trump told journalists on Monday. “We did a long way. It could be something that will happen, but I hope it will do it.”
Last week, the correspondent of Mr. Trump in Ukraine in the interviews of ceased fire, General Keith Kellogg, in an interview with Fox News, criticized the Russian offer as “absurd”. General Kellogg said that “what the president wants is a permanent and complete fire, the sea, the air, the land, the infrastructures, for a minimum of 30 days”. He added that “the president has this right on money, and that's where we want to go”.
Also Tuesday, Ukraine and Russia carried out an important exchange of prisoners of war, mediated by the United Arab Emirates, said the officials of both sides. At noon, 205 Russian soldiers had been released in exchange for the same number of Ukrainians, said the Russian Ministry of Defense. A similar exchange of prisoners of last month saw a total of over 500 soldiers on both parties released.
Ukraine has increased the production of drones that explode for a long range, a response to missiles and drones designed by Iran, Russia fired from its invasion of 2022.
Most are light craftsmanship that look like small airplanes, some fueled by chain engines. Tortuous paths fly to avoid air defenses and, if they pass, at the last moment they dive into the objectives to detonate a few dozen pounds of high explosives.
The attack of Droni Tuesday has stretched for seven hours on a temptular area of central Russia, reported the country of defense of the country in a social media place. He said he killed 105 Ukrainian drones in 11 regions, including areas east of Moscow in the Volga River Valley, hundreds of miles from the Ukrainian border.
The mayor of Moscow, Sergei S. Sobyanin, published that 19 drones were demolished beyond the capital Tuesday, even if without causing injuries or damage.
The debris of a demolished drone hit a skyscraper near the Kashirskaya metro station in Moscow, according to Baza, a Russian store. Other debris landed on a highway in the capital, Sabyanin wrote.
The drones forced the controllers of Russian air traffic to close flights for a maximum of five hours, according to Rosaviasia, the Russian agency that supervises the safety of aviation and air traffic control. Thirty -four flights related to Moscow diverted themselves away from the capital during the night, according to the agency.
More close to the Ukrainian border, a strike on an electrical after -setting in the Kursk region in Russia at the end of Monday wounded two teenagers, said the regional governor, Aleksandr Khinshtein, in an assignment on social media. The attack cut electricity in the city of Rylsk, wrote.
A major of the Ukrainian National Guard, Oleksii Hetman, told the Ukrainian media that Ukraine had staged a surprise counterattack in the Kursk region, putting forward in the area that has withdrawn from this spring. It was not possible to independently check this account.
Although the attacks of Russia to Ukraine from the air have intensified this year, the Russian progress have mostly blocked on the field.
The Institute for the Study of War, an analytical group based in the United States, calculated that the Russian army has lost 153 soldiers killed or injured on average for each square military captured in the Kursk region and within Ukraine in the last four months of 2024. According to the estimate.
Netali Novosolova Reports contributed by Kyiv, Ukraine.