Russia’s Defense Ministry said Thursday its air defenses shot down 92 Ukrainian aerial drones that targeted areas along the Russia-Ukraine border.
The ministry said more than half of the drones were intercepted over Krasnodar, where Governor Veniamin Kondratyev said falling debris damaged several homes but did not cause any casualties.
Russian air defenses also shot down drones over the Kursk, Rostov, Bryansk, Belgorod and Voronezh regions, as well as the Sea of Azov and Russia-occupied Crimea.
Ukraine’s military said Thursday it shot down 41 of 62 drones that Russia used in overnight attacks.
The intercepts took place over the Cherkasy, Dnipropetrovsk, Donetsk, Kherson, Kyiv, Mykolaiv, Odesa, Poltava, Sumy and Zaporizhzhia regions, the Ukrainian air force said.
Serhiy Lysak, governor of Dnipropetrovsk, said on Telegram the Russian attack damaged a house and gas pipelines in Kryvyi Rih, while injuring at least two people.
Zaporizhzhia Governor Ivan Fedorov said Russian attacks damaged several houses in his region and injured four people.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy traveled Thursday to Britain for talks with Prime Minister Keir Starmer as part of a tour of European allies.
Zelenskyy was also expected to meet Thursday with NATO Secretary-General Mark Rutte in London before heading to Paris to meet with French President Emmanuel Macron.
The discussions were expected to focus on what Zelenskyy has called his "victory plan" in the war to repel Russia’s invasion. Zelenskyy said at a summit Wednesday that the plan included seeking to strengthen Ukraine’s position "geopolitically and on the battlefield" before engaging in any dialogue with Russia.
Macron’s office said he would "reaffirm France’s determination to continue to provide, over the long term and with all of its partners, unwavering support to Ukraine and the Ukrainian people," according to a statement from the Elysee Palace.
The visit to France will be Zelenskyy’s fifth since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, and it comes a day after Macron visited part of a brigade of Ukrainian troops training at an undisclosed location in France.
France is training 2,300 soldiers of the 4,500-member Anne of Kyiv brigade, named after the Kyiv-born princess who married French King Henry I in 1051. The other 2,200 soldiers are being trained in Ukraine.
A French presidency official said the Ukrainian soldiers’ training will be complete in a few months and is "completely identical to the situation they will find on the ground."
The official said the troops "will face real situations — stress, noise, drones," during their training.
France has pledged to equip the brigade. Included among the promised items are 128 armored vehicles, 18 Caesar howitzers and 20 anti-tank missile units.
Some information for this story was provided by Reuters, Agence France-Presse and The Associated Press.
