All articles tagged with #drones
Kyiv endures a second day of Russian drone attacks and relentless air-raid alerts, with waves of jet-powered drones forcing residents into shelters, causing casualties (one dead and two injured in the Kyiv region) and damaging dozens of warehouses, homes and vehicles, as Ukraine reports continued disruption to transport and daily life.
Zelenskyy urged Ukraine to escalate long-range drone strikes against Russia to at least 1,000 per day, a jump from about 300, after discussions connected to a Moscow visit by US intelligence chief John Ratcliffe. Kyiv says deep strikes on Russian military production and fuel facilities—including an oil refinery in the Yaroslavl region—aim to degrade Moscow’s capacity, while Russia continues attacks across Ukraine and the visit marked a rare high-level intelligence engagement.
ISW assessments highlight Ukraine’s strike on Russia’s Engels-2 airbase Tu-95MS bomber, showing Kyiv’s ability to hit deep rear targets, while Moscow faces a 5.5 trillion-ruble April budget shortfall and austerity measures ahead of September elections, fueling concerns about mobilization. Russia continues long-range tests of ICBMs and touts an EW system to disrupt Starlink, though its effectiveness is limited by cost and range. Ukraine is pressuring Russia’s energy sector with repeated refinery strikes, contributing to lower Russian refining output and gasoline shortages, as Belarusian leader Lukashenko and Putin discuss deeper cooperation. On the battlefield, Ukrainian forces conduct limited advances and counterattacks across multiple fronts, and Russia maintains pressure with energy-targeted strikes and drone campaigns (164 launched, 137 intercepted).
Russia intensified its drone and glide-bomb campaign across Ukraine, battering Kyiv region for a second day and prompting air-quality warnings as residents were urged to stay indoors and close windows; Kherson officials warned of prolonged outages and urged evacuation, while strikes hit a logistics hub in Sumy and a Kyiv-area depot, with Russia claiming thousands of drones and glide bombs in recent weeks and Ukraine conducting strikes against targets inside Russia.
A Ukrainian drone attack hit the Slavneft-Yanos refinery in Yaroslavl, sparking a fire that killed one civilian and injured 27 as debris damaged nearby areas; authorities said 67 drones were downed in the region, with debris affecting residential and industrial sites, while Kyiv claimed the refinery strike and other actions against Russian forces. Russia said it intercepted hundreds of drones across Russia and Crimea that day.
Ukraine says it shot down seven ballistic missiles and 258 drones during a prolonged Russian assault aimed at energy facilities, ports, grain storage and other infrastructure across the country, including Kyiv, Kharkiv and Kherson, with Kherson’s heating plant damaged and at risk of long outages; a Russian serviceman was killed by a car bomb in St. Petersburg, and Moldova reported drone incursions amid wider regional tensions.
The U.S. military used an Army Multipurpose High Energy Laser to shoot down three Mexican cartel drones in the Rio Grande Valley near the U.S.–Mexico border. Location of the strikes and whether they occurred on U.S. or Mexican soil were not disclosed. Officials said the drones threatened U.S. personnel, reflecting broader border-security efforts and cartels’ increasing use of unmanned aircraft. Mexico’s president warned against unilateral action on Mexican soil as a sovereignty issue.
Japan’s Acquisition, Technology and Logistics Agency approved a mass-production contract for Terra B1 3D-printed interceptor drones to accelerate a large unmanned fleet rollout by 2027, with production spread across multiple sites to bolster resilience; the move aims to rapidly counter one-way attack drones and adapt to evolving threats.
Ukraine’s wave of drone strikes across Russia and occupied eastern Ukraine killed at least 12 people and caused fires at a Lukoil NORSI refinery and a Wildberries logistics hub in Kotovsk. Kyiv said 16 targets were hit including oil facilities, airfields and logistics sites, amid civilian casualties reported in Lipetsk and Belgorod and a bus attack in the Lugansk region.
France’s chief of defense staff Gen. Fabien Mandon warns that Paris isn’t ready to defend against cheap, mass-produced drones like Iranian Shahed drones; reducing the cost per kill will require scalable, affordable weapons, with MBDA and startups developing cheaper options while accelerating the armed forces’ use of drones.
Russia conducted a coordinated overnight barrage against Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities with missiles and drones, triggering fires at warehouses in the Kyiv region (including Rozetka and Fozzy facilities) and injuring civilians elsewhere, as Ukrainian air defenses downed numerous drones and missiles and authorities continued to assess damage and casualties.
Russia plans to summon Romania’s chargé d’affaires in Moscow in a retaliatory move after Bucharest expelled a Russian diplomat over repeated drone incursions into Romanian airspace; Romania recalled its ambassador and showed fragments of a drone, and Romanian forces downed three drones in late July, highlighting a long-running breach of airspace since 2022.
Ukraine’s 3rd Army Corps mounted a limited, drone‑assisted operation in northern Donetsk, penetrating up to about three kilometres with four infantry fighting vehicles and deploying troops before pulling back. While small in scale, analysts say the move demonstrates manoeuvre warfare enabled by drones and artillery and could blunt a Russian pocket that threatens Sloviansk and Kramatorsk if replicated. Fighting remains concentrated around the Lyman axis and nearby targets like Kolodiazi and Shandryholove, as broader front lines across the Sloviansk–Kramatorsk area and toward Kharkiv continue to see activity.
NBC News, citing unnamed sources, reports that Iranian drones and missiles have struck CIA posts and surveillance hardware across the Middle East, potentially costing billions in damage and repairs, with confirmed hits on a CIA site in Riyadh and another in eastern Iraq amid the broader Iran–U.S. conflict.
An opinion piece warning that AI-enabled drone warfare—from Ukrainian swarms to Russian and Israeli systems—is outpacing law and accountability. It urges retaking human control, tightening international norms under the CCW, and scrutinizing government-AI company partnerships to prevent lethal autonomy from escaping the sandbox and causing uncontrollable civilian harm.