Russia on Friday, September 12th said it downed 221 Ukrainian drones, one of the highest tallies in the war to date.
Moscow’s defence ministry said its alert systems had intercepted and destroyed the drones overnight, over half of which flew over the regions of Bryansk and Smolensk.
Twenty-eight drones were shot down over the Leningrad region, which surrounds the city of St Petersburg, and nine in the Moscow region.
Leningrad governor Aleksandr Drozdenko said a fire had broken out on a vessel in the Port of Primorsk, a major facility on the Baltic Sea, but the blaze had been brought under control and there was no risk of an oil spill.
The attacks came after Poland, which borders Ukraine, accused Russia of launching a drone raid on its territory this week.
Moscow has denied targeting the country and said there was no evidence the drones were Russian.
But France and Germany moved to bolster the defence of Polish airspace, with the UN Security Council calling an emergency meeting to discuss the allegations.
Meanwhile, Russia and Belarus began their joint Zapad military exercises, as Moscow’s forces grind across the sprawling front line in Ukraine and escalating aerial attacks on Ukrainian cities.
NATO members on its eastern flank, bordering Belarus—Poland, Lithuania and Latvia—are on high alert over the drills, held near Borisov, a town east of the capital Minsk.
All three countries have ramped up security ahead of the exercises, with Poland ordering the complete closure of its border with Belarus for their duration.
