Russia surpassed its previous record of the largest-ever drone and missile attack against Ukraine on Tuesday night, devastating cities and logistical hubs across Ukraine with 728 drones and 13 missiles.
Moscow has flexed its military and industrial capabilities in recent months, drastically boosting its drone and missile strikes against Ukraine to record levels. Over the past several weeks, it has continually broken its previous records of drone and missile strikes against Ukraine, but Tuesday night’s strike was well above the previous record made last week of around 550 drones and missiles. The strike was also the single largest drone and missile attack in history.
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For reference, a November strike of roughly 188 drones in a single night was record-setting at the time. Tuesday’s strike reflects the vastly expanded drone production of the Russian military, which has managed a constant stream of drone and missile strikes nearly every night over the past few months.
The Tuesday strike specifically targeted the Ozerne Airbase in Zhytomyr Oblast, Kharkov airport, Lutsk Airbase, warehouses around Kyiv, the Lutsk Motor Plant, and the former 37th Missile Division Base, which has a drone assembly plant.
According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, the primary target of the strikes was Lutsk, an important supply hub for Western weapons due to its proximity to the Polish border. A video posted on social media showed one of the Kh-101 cruise missiles striking a target in Lutsk with a cluster munition.
Other footage from Lutsk showed searchlights and antiaircraft fire attempting to intercept the drones, to no avail.
The Russian open-source intelligence telegram channel Rybar noted the consistently increasing scale of drone and missile attacks and the increased targeting of the western regions of Ukraine. It also noted the decreased effectiveness of Ukrainian air defenses.
“Ukrainian air defense systems are clearly not coping with the attacks, which is primarily a consequence of new tactics and competent organization of fire damage,” it said. “So far, all this works very well, and the enemy has not found any countermeasures.”
Ukraine is completely out of ammunition for its two vital missile defense SAMP/T batteries, the Franco-Italian version of the U.S. Patriot missile defense system, according to sources speaking with Le Monde late last month. It’s almost or completely out of ammunition for its short-range anti-aircraft Crotale system, and its stocks of Patriot missiles have grown thin.
Secretary of State Marco Rubio indicated in May that the United States has no more Patriot missiles to give, after missile defense supplies were further strained by the “12 Day War” between Iran and Israel. Trump announced this week that the U.S. would supply defensive weapons to Ukraine, without specifying what or how many.
According to the Guardian, the U.S. only has 25% of the Patriot missile interceptors it needs for its current military plans, making further significant weapons transfers to Ukraine unlikely. The U.S. currently produces roughly 600 Patriot missiles per year.
A report from Ukraine’s general staff found that in the three months before last August, Russia launched 1,100 drones. The number escalated over the ensuing three months to 818 in August, 1,410 in September, and over 2,000 in October. By May, the number was over 4,000, while 1,451 were launched over the past week. Russia averaged hundreds of drones and missiles launched every day in June.
Zelensky said Tuesday’s strike also hit targets in Dnipro, Zhytomyr, Kyiv, Kirovohrad, Mykolaiv, Sumy, Kharkiv, Khmelnytsky, Cherkasy, and Chernihiv oblasts. Other analysts noted attacks against Lviv, Poltava, Vinnytsia, Pavlograd, Zaporozhye, and Krivoy Rog oblasts.
Despite the scale of the strikes, no deaths were immediately reported.
“This is a telling attack — and it comes precisely at a time when so many efforts have been made to achieve peace, to establish a ceasefire, and yet only Russia continues to rebuff them all,” Zelensky said, calling for more sanctions against Russia.
“Our partners know how to apply pressure in a way that will force Russia to think about ending the war, not launching new strikes. Everyone who wants peace must act,” he added.
Ukrainian Security Service spokesman Artem Dehtiarenko told the BBC that Russia has significantly modified its Geran drones, the Russian version of Iranian Shahed drones, since their debut in the fall of 2022.
“Russian engineers have been tasked with increasing their destructive power in order to maximize devastation and civilian casualties,” he said. “In addition, efforts are being made to make the Geran drones less vulnerable to Ukrainian air defences.”
Part of the Geran’s effectiveness lies in its low cost, which allows Russia to produce thousands for constant use. Ukrainian intelligence believes it produces 200 Gerans per day with a stockpile of over 6,000.
Ukraine launched a drone attack against Russia, hitting Belgorod, Smolensk, Kursk, and Moscow oblasts. Several Russians were killed in the attacks, and more were wounded. Most of the casualties took place when a Ukrainian drone struck a beach in the city of Kursk.
“With deep sorrow, I report that three people died at the scene following the attack on the city beach,” acting Kursk region Gov. Alexander Khinshtein said Tuesday on Telegram.
One of the dead was a National Guard soldier who was evacuating people from the area. Seven others were wounded, five of them seriously, including a young boy.
He added that seven others were wounded, including a 5-year-old boy.
Russia’s Tuesday strike is likely to further embitter Trump, who has grown sour on Putin.
“I’m very disappointed with the conversation I had today with President Putin because I don’t think he’s there,” he said last week, adding that the pair didn’t make progress on a peace deal “at all.”
Trump said it was a “pretty long call,” and he discussed a “lot of things” with Putin, including Iran.
“And we also talked about, as you know, the war with Ukraine,” he said. “And I’m not happy about that. I’m not happy about that.”
Trump was more blunt when speaking at a Monday Cabinet meeting.
“We get a lot of bull**** thrown at us by Putin, if you want to know the truth. He’s very nice all of the time, but it turns out to be meaningless,” he said.
Trump’s shifting rhetoric on Russia was accompanied by a CNN report citing an audio recording of him telling donors during the 2024 election that he warned Putin he would “bomb the sh*t out of Moscow” if Russia attacked Ukraine.
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Moscow voiced skepticism over the report.
“I cannot confirm or deny this, even if I wanted to… Whether it is fake or not, we do not know either. There is a lot of fake news these days,” Kremlin spokesman Dmitri Peskov told reporters.