Drone warfare is spreading across Ukraine, intensified by a shortage of artillery ammunition on the ground. Nightly patrols by unmanned aerial units are feeding the weekend front reports on the eastern sector.
Six partial Ukrainian counterattacks in the Kupyansk area, in northern Donbas, and a drone offensive against Crimea dominated Saturday and early Sunday, as fighting in the Donbas front lines grows more intense.
Russian air defenses reported shooting down six drones near Kupyansk, four of which were attack drones (three of them from the Fury model) and two were Ukrainian-made Leleka observation drones. The unmanned aircraft targeted Russian missile sites in occupied territory.
On the ground, exchanges of artillery fire occurred in various spots. The Russian Defense Ministry claimed the elimination of three Ukrainian self-propelled batteries and reported 55 soldier deaths. These numbers are not independently verifiable at this stage. Ukraine, for its part, tallied 1,160 Russian casualties across all fronts in the last 24 hours, according to its Defense Ministry channel on the X platform.
In that front sector, Ukrainian forces reported destroying 14 Russian drones on Saturday, most of which were explosive kamikaze aircraft.
Drones in Crimea
South, in Crimea, night battles also pitted Russian air defense units against Ukrainian flying drones. The Russian Defense Ministry tallied 38 Ukrainian drones shot down over Crimean airspace on Sunday’s early hours.
The Ukrainian strike did not stay on the peninsula. Across the interior, the main target was the border city of Belgorod, acting as a logistics hub for Russian forces near Kharkov. Two Ukrainian drones were brought down in this attack.
The same night, and according to the Russian Defense Ministry, two other drones bound for St. Petersburg were neutralized, though Kyiv did not acknowledge this claim.
Shortly after, reports from Ukraine described the destruction of two Russian Su-34 bombers belonging to the air force, marking another weekend development.
The weekend also saw a large drone swarm attack, with Iranian-made kamikaze drones used to strike civilian buildings in the Ukrainian port city of Odessa during the early hours of Saturday. Odessa’s air defense struggled to halt the wave, and the assault has raised questions about the potential use of AI-enabled swarm tactics, though this remains unconfirmed.
The drones in question were Shahed-model aircraft, also known as Geran II in Russia, deployed by Moscow for deep strikes into Ukraine and responsible for many civilian casualties.
The growing use of unmanned aerial systems is allowing both sides to reduce costly missile expenditure, while Odessa authorities counted several fatalities and many people displaced by the latest strikes.