Russia and Ukraine have launched a wave of drone attacks against each other overnight, even as Moscow claimed it was finalising a peace proposal to end the war.
Ukrainian air force officials said on Tuesday that Russia deployed 60 drones across multiple regions through the night, injuring 10 people. Kyiv’s air defences intercepted 43 of them – 35 were shot down while eight were diverted using electronic warfare systems.
In Dnipropetrovsk, central Ukraine, Governor Serhiy Lysak reported damage to residential properties and an agricultural site after Russian drones led to fires during the night. In Kherson, a southern city frequently hit by Russian strikes, a drone attack on Tuesday morning wounded a 59-year-old man and six municipal workers, officials said.
The barrage came days after Ukraine endured one of the heaviest aerial offensives of the war. On Sunday night alone, Ukraine’s air force claimed Russia launched 355 drones, a record number.
That escalation prompted United States President Donald Trump to declare that Vladimir Putin had “gone absolutely CRAZY” and to threaten new sanctions. The Kremlin brushed off the remarks, accusing Trump of suffering from “emotional overload”.
Russia said on Tuesday that its huge aerial assaults in recent days were a “response” to escalating Ukrainian drone attacks on its own civilians, accusing Kyiv of trying to “disrupt” peace efforts.
“Kyiv, with the support of some European countries, has taken a series of provocative steps to thwart negotiations initiated by Russia,” the Russian Ministry of Defence said in a statement.
The ministry said its forces had shot down 99 Ukrainian drones on Tuesday, including 56 over the Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine.
It claimed that from May 20 to 27, air defence units intercepted more than 2,300 Ukrainian drones – 1,465 of them outside active conflict zones.
Russia seizes more territory
In a further setback for Kyiv, Russian troops have captured four villages in Ukraine’s northeastern Sumy region, the local governor confirmed on Tuesday.
Oleh Hryhorov said Novenke, Basivka, Veselivka and Zhuravka were now under Russian control, though civilians had already been evacuated. “The enemy is continuing attempts to advance with the aim of setting up a so-called ‘buffer zone’,” he wrote on Facebook.
Russia’s Defence Ministry also claimed it had taken the nearby village of Bilovody, pointing to further advances near the border.
Though Moscow’s main offensive remains in Donetsk, its push into Sumy shows how Russian forces are stretching Ukraine’s army thin across multiple fronts.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned again this week that new Russian offensives were likely in Sumy, Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia.
Russian troops have been attacking in small groups on motorcycles, backed by drones. Ukrainian forces say they’re holding the line and targeting enemy positions with precision fire.
Military blog DeepState reported over the weekend that Russia now holds about 62.6 sq km (24 square miles) in the region – the first time it has secured a strip of border villages there.
Last month, a Russian missile killed 36 people in the city of Sumy.
Europe undermining peace talks, says Russia
Amid new territorial gains and escalating violence, Russia has shifted blame for the lack of diplomatic progress onto European leaders.
Putin met Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan on Monday to discuss efforts to end the war in Ukraine, according to a source from Turkiye’s Ministry of Foreign Affairs. Fidan also met Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov on Tuesday as part of his two-day trip to Moscow.
During the meeting, Lavrov took aim at German Chancellor Friedrich Merz, suggesting his recent comments on Ukraine’s use of Western weapons for strikes deep inside Russia reveal that the decision to greenlight such attacks was made long before it was made public.
Lavrov said Merz’s statement was telling – not only for what it implied about policy but for what it revealed about the current crop of Western leaders.
“This shows what sort of people have come to power in key European countries,” Lavrov said.
Merz had earlier stated that weapons supplied to Kyiv by the United Kingdom, France, Germany and the US were no longer bound by range restrictions, clearing the path for deeper attacks into Russian territory.
On Tuesday, while on an official visit to Finland, Merz said Western allies had lifted restrictions on the range of weapons sent to Ukraine. He warned the war could drag on, citing Russia’s refusal to engage in meaningful talks. “We may have to prepare for a longer duration,” he told reporters.
Meanwhile, Moscow accused Ukraine and its European allies of deliberately undermining efforts to revive peace talks. “Since 20 May, Ukraine has ramped up strikes on Russian territory using Western-supplied weapons, deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure,” it said.
Direct talks between Russia and Ukraine resumed on May 16 – the first in more than three years – but failed to result in a ceasefire. Russia has since insisted it is working on a serious draft agreement to end hostilities.
“This is a serious draft, a draft of a serious document that demands careful checks and preparation,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said, adding it had not yet been submitted.
Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said the draft would lay out key terms for a political settlement and potential ceasefire, and would be presented to Kyiv once finalised.
Moscow has accused Ukraine of escalating attacks in recent days to derail the negotiations. In response to media reports about possible new US sanctions, Peskov claimed Washington was trying to sabotage the diplomatic process.
