The war's drone campaign is reaching further across Russian territory, with Ukrainian forces carrying out an overnight attack on Sochi, the Black Sea resort city, as Moscow said it had intercepted 399 drones across Russia and annexed Crimea.
Five people, including a child, were wounded in the attack, which occurred Monday. Only one victim was hospitalised. Three homes were damaged, and Sochi Mayor Andrei Proshunin said firefighters had put out fires caused by the assault.
Proshunin also announced the closure of Sochi's beaches because of the continuing risk of drone strikes. Drone fragments fell at several other locations in the city.
Ukraine's drones also attacked Russia's Krasnodar region. Explosions were reported in Sochi and Dagomys. Open-source intelligence analysts said an S-400 air defence system was reportedly hit in Dagomys, although the extent of any resulting damage to Russian air defences is unclear.
Russia's Defence Ministry said its forces intercepted 399 Ukrainian drones between Sunday night and Monday morning across Russian territory and annexed Crimea. The ministry's account did not give the total number of drones launched, and its interception claim could not be independently verified from the information available.
In the neighbouring Rostov region, Governor Yury Slyusar said air defence systems intercepted 50 drones. He reported damage to civilian infrastructure in the region, while saying that no one was hurt.
The attacks brought the effects of the drone war to civilians on both sides. In Ukraine's Dnipropetrovsk region, a Russian drone strike on a passenger bus in the Nikopol district killed five people and injured seven others. The Nikopol district is under regular shelling.
A Russian attack on a farm warehouse in the northern Chernihiv region killed three people and injured seven others. Russia also struck a passenger train near Ukraine's border with Poland on Sunday.
The reported scale of the Russian interceptions points to intense drone activity across several areas, though the timing and coordination of the Ukrainian strikes remain unclear. The attacks on Sochi and other locations show the growing geographic reach of Ukrainian operations, while damage to homes, transport and other civilian infrastructure underlines the continuing cost to non-combatants.
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