Ukraine targets four Russian air bases in major drone attack, Kyiv source says

KYIV: Ukraine carried out its largest long-range drone strike of the war on four Russian military airfields overnight, a Kyiv security source said, an attack hailed by President Volodymyr Zelensky as “timely” and “accurate.”
The strike, which targeted Russia’s Voronezh, Kursk, Savasleyka and Borisoglebsk air bases, aimed to undermine Moscow’s ability to use warplanes for gliding bomb attacks on Ukraine, the source said.
Reuters could not independently verify the claim. Ukraine was still assessing the scale of damage, the source said.
“Thank you for the accurate, timely, and effective strikes on Russian airfields. Ukrainian drones work exactly as they should,” Zelensky said as he addressed the military on Wednesday.
Russia’s defense ministry said earlier that its air defenses had destroyed 117 drones and four tactical missiles launched by Ukraine at several regions including Kursk.
The strike on the airfields comes as Ukrainian troops are trying to press forward in Russia’s Kursk region after they launched a surprise operation which has yielded their biggest battlefield gains since 2022.
Since the incursion last week, Russian forces has reduced the number of guided bomb attacks on border settlements in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, the local governor said on Monday.