Ukraine Drone Strike Targets Russian Air Bases in Large-Scale Attack

Ukraine on Sunday launched one of its broadest assaults of the war against air bases inside Russia, a coordinated operation that targeted sites from eastern Siberia to Russia’s western border and that left several Russian aircraft in flames.

The Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian airfields came as Kyiv suffered a damaging blow of its own on Sunday, with Russia striking a Ukrainian military training base and killing at least 12 soldiers.

The day’s violence showed that the fighting between the two adversaries was only escalating even as they were expected to sit down for another round of cease-fire negotiations on Monday in Istanbul. Russian forces have quickened the pace of their advances in Ukraine and bombarded Ukrainian cities, as Ukrainian leaders accuse Russia of stalling for time in the peace talks and Moscow pushes for a breakthrough in the conflict after more than three years.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Sunday that Ukrainian drones had attacked airfields in five regions stretching across five time zones. Several aircraft caught fire in the regions of Murmansk, near the border with Norway, and Irkutsk, in eastern Siberia, the ministry said in a statement. It said that the other attacks were repelled, and that there were no casualties.

The attack in Irkutsk, on the Belaya air base, was the first time any place in Siberia had come under attack by Ukraine’s drones since the war began in February 2022. The Olenya base in the Murmansk region, which also came under attack, is one of Russia’s key strategic airfields, hosting nuclear-capable aircraft.

An official in Ukraine’s security services, known as the S.B.U., who spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive intelligence operation, said that dozens of aircraft had been damaged in the strikes. It was not immediately possible to independently confirm that claim, or the details from Russia’s Defense Ministry.

The official said that Ukrainian officers had secretly transported drones into Russian territory on trucks and launched them from those vehicles. That also could not be confirmed, but Russia’s Defense Ministry said that drones used in the Murmansk and Irkutsk attacks had been launched from the immediate vicinity of the airfields.

President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine said on social media that planning for the operation had begun a year and a half ago, and that those involved in the attacks had been withdrawn from Russia before they took place.

He called the results of the assault “absolutely brilliant” and added, “Ukraine is defending itself, and rightly so — we are doing everything to make Russia feel the need to end this war.”

A video verified by The New York Times shows two drones being launched from containers mounted on the back of a semi-truck less than four miles from the Belaya air base. Both fly in the direction of large smoke plumes rising from the base. Footage recorded shortly afterward shows the same containers ablaze.

Another video shows drones flying less than four miles from the Olenya air base. The man recording it suggests that the drones had been launched from a truck parked just down the road. The Times could not confirm that these drones were part of the assault.

Russian military bloggers were quick to declare the Ukrainian attacks a significant failure of Russia’s defenses.

“Today will later be called a black day for Russian long-range aviation,” read a post on the Telegram channel called Fighterbomber, which is believed to be run by Capt. Ilya Tumanov of the Russian Army. It added, “And the day is not over yet.”

The deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Iryna Vereshchuk, said that the security services had “set a new bar of skill in conducting large-scale combat operations on enemy territory.”

She wrote on Telegram, “This is not a knockout, but a very serious knockdown for the enemy.”

Earlier on Sunday, Ukraine’s military said that a Russian missile attack on a training base killed at least 12 soldiers and wounded more than 60 others — a rare statement acknowledging casualties within its ranks.

The commander of Ukraine’s ground forces, Maj. Gen. Mykhailo Drapatyi, submitted his resignation after the attack on the base, in the Dnipro region, saying in a statement that he felt a “personal sense of responsibility for the tragedy.”

“An army in which commanders bear personal responsibility for the lives of their people is alive. An army where no one is held accountable for losses dies from within,” he said.

Ukraine’s military said that it was investigating the circumstances but emphasized that there was not a mass gathering at the time of the strike — an apparent attempt to show lessons learned from previous instances.

“At the time the air-raid alert was announced, all personnel were in shelters, except for those who may not have had time to reach it,” Vitalii Sarantsev, a spokesman for Ukraine’s ground forces, said in an interview with Ukrainian news media.

Ukraine’s military does not typically disclose official casualty figures, which are treated as a state secret and are a highly delicate topic in the country. Past attacks with large numbers of military casualties — like when a Russian missile killed soldiers gathered for an awards ceremony in southern Ukraine in late 2023 — have raised questions about security protocols.

Sunday’s attacks came on the eve of another round of peace talks in Istanbul, proposed by Moscow. While Kyiv had insisted it see a promised memorandum outlining Russia’s cease-fire terms before sending any officials to the talks, Mr. Zelensky announced Sunday that Kyiv would in fact send a delegation.

He did not say whether Ukraine had received the memorandum. In a post on social media, Mr. Zelensky said only that he had met with senior leadership and “defined our positions” ahead of the talks on Monday in Istanbul, where Defense Minister Rustem Umerov is to lead Ukraine’s delegation.

Ukrainian officials have accused President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia of stalling for time in the negotiations.

Hours before the strike on the military training base, Russia launched what Ukrainian officials said was the largest combined overnight aerial assault on the country since the start of the war.

The Ukrainian Air Force said that Russia launched 472 drones and seven missiles overnight. It said that the majority of the drones and three of the incoming missiles were intercepted but that at least 18 targets were struck.

While the air force did not provide further details on what was struck, local officials in the Kyiv region said that at least 10 homes had been damaged. The local authorities also reported damage in the Kirovohrad region of central Ukraine and in the northeastern Kharkiv region.

Devon Lum contributed reporting.