Russia's military said early on Monday that air defence units had downed 148 Ukrainian drones during a three-hour period, and officials reported that emergency crews were restoring power to nearly half a million households after outages tied to air strikes.
The Defence Ministry said air defence forces intercepted 148 drones, mostly over central and southern parts of the country, between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. (1700-2000 GMT) on Sunday. The ministry's statement attributed the interceptions to coordinated air defence action across several regions.
On Sunday evening a drone strike in Belgorod, a border region frequently targeted in cross-border operations, killed a civil defence volunteer, the authorities said. In the Black Sea port city of Novorossiysk, mayor Andrei Kravchenko said debris from drones had struck a high-rise apartment building; there was no immediate information on casualties.
Crimea, the peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014, was also targeted. The governor of Sevastopol reported that his city came under four drone attacks throughout the day. Officials said seven drones were downed in the latest wave of strikes affecting the region.
In Russian-occupied areas of eastern Ukraine, the head of the Russia-installed government in Donetsk, Andrei Chertkov, said repair crews had restored power to two major cities, Donetsk and Makiivka, after Ukrainian attacks on energy infrastructure. Chertkov had earlier reported that nearly half a million households had been left without electricity and said work continued in areas still without power.
Repair teams were also engaged in restoring electricity following mass outages reported in Russian-held parts of Zaporizhzhia region. Officials described ongoing efforts to bring services back online and to repair damaged infrastructure.
The sequence of events — a concentrated series of drone interceptions, a fatality in Belgorod, strikes on urban residential buildings in Novorossiysk, repeated attacks on Sevastopol, and damage to energy systems in occupied Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia — underscores the breadth of the incidents across multiple regions. Authorities emphasized the scale of the air defence response and the mobilization of emergency crews to address outages and infrastructure damage.
Summary of events
- Air defence units intercepted 148 drones between 8 p.m. and 11 p.m. (1700-2000 GMT) on Sunday.
- A drone killed a civil defence volunteer in Belgorod and debris struck a high-rise in Novorossiysk, with no confirmed casualty report from the latter.
- Sevastopol experienced four drone attacks during the day, and seven drones were downed in the latest wave.
- Repair crews restored power to Donetsk and Makiivka after attacks on energy infrastructure; nearly half a million households had been reported without electricity.
- Maintenance teams were also working to restore power in Russian-held Zaporizhzhia region.