Russia and Ukraine trade long-range drone attacks as Putin says Moscow is ready for new peace talks

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia and Ukraine exchanged more long-range drone attacks that have become a staple of the more than three-year war, officials said Friday, as Russian President Vladimir Putin said Moscow is ready for a fresh round of direct peace talks in Istanbul.

Russian and Ukrainian officials are discussing the timing of a potential new meeting, Putin said. Speaking to reporters during a visit to Belarus, he said that the terms of a potential ceasefire, which the Kremlin has so far effectively rejected, are expected to be on the agenda.

The war shows no signs of abating as U.S.-led international peace efforts have so far produced no breakthrough. Two recent rounds of talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Istanbul were brief and yielded no progress on reaching a settlement.

Ukraine wants the next step in peace talks to be a meeting between Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and Putin, Ukrainian Defense Minister Rustem Umerov said.

Given Putin’s recent comments, it's unclear how this will pan out. The Russian leader has said a summit meeting should take place only after the main provisions of a peace deal have been agreed, and that could take months or years.

Putin has also repeated his claim that Zelenskyy lost his legitimacy after his presidential term expired last year — an allegation rejected by Kyiv and its allies.

Meanwhile, Russian forces launched 363 Shahed and decoy drones as well as eight missiles at Ukraine overnight, the Ukrainian air force said Friday, claiming that air defenses stopped all but four of the drones and downed six cruise missiles.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said 39 Ukrainian drones were downed in several regions overnight, including 19 over the Rostov region and 13 over the Volgograd region. Both regions lie east of Ukraine.

Ukraine’s General Staff said later on Friday that four military aircraft stationed at the Marinovka airfield in the Volgograd region had been destroyed during a mission involving Special Forces and Ukrainian intelligence overnight.

“Four enemy aircraft, namely Su-34s, and a technical and operational unit, where various combat aircraft are serviced and repaired, were destroyed,” according to a preliminary assessment posted online.

The AP couldn't independently verify the claim. Russian officials did not immediately comment, nor did they mention the Marinovka airfield in public statements about the overnight drone attack on the region.

Volgograd Gov. Andrei Bocharov, however, on Friday morning listed the region's Kalanchyovsky district where Marinovka is located among three areas targeted by Ukrainian drones.

Bocharov said that traffic on the bridge over the Don River in the Kalachyovsky district was temporarily restricted, but didn't offer any other details.

Long-range drone strikes have been a hallmark of the war, now in its fourth year. The race by both sides to develop increasingly sophisticated and deadlier drones has turned the war into a testing ground for new weaponry.

Ukrainian drones have pulled off some stunning feats. At the start of June, nearly a third of Moscow’s strategic bomber fleet was destroyed or damaged in a covert Ukrainian operation using cheaply made drones sneaked into Russian territory.

The Ukrainian air force said that 359 incoming drones were either intercepted or electronically jammed.

Ukraine is employing new countermeasures against Russia’s escalation of combined missile and drone attacks, officials say. Instead of relying on ground-based mobile teams to shoot down Shaheds, Ukraine is deploying interceptor drones it has developed.

The Ukrainian attack forced three Russian airports to briefly suspend flights, officials said. The authorities also briefly closed the Crimean Bridge overnight as drones targeted Crimea.

Neither Russia nor Ukraine reported any major damage or casualties in the attacks.

Russia manufactures Shahed drones based on an original Iranian model, churning out thousands of them at a plant in the Tatarstan region. It has upgraded the Shaheds with its own innovations, including bigger warheads.

They are known as suicide drones because they nosedive into targets and explode on impact, like a missile. The incessant buzzing of the propeller-driven Shahed drones is unnerving for anyone under its flight path because no one on the ground knows exactly when or where the weapon will hit.

Being outgunned and outnumbered in the war against its bigger neighbor, Ukraine also has developed its own cutting-edge drone technology, including long-range sea drones, and has trained thousands of drone pilots.

Smaller, short-range drones are used by both sides on the battlefield and in areas close to the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line.

Those drones, fitted with onboard cameras that give their operators a real-time view of possible targets, have also struck civilian areas.

The U.N. Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine said in a report published Thursday that short-range drone attacks killed at least 395 civilians and injured 2,635 between the start of the war and last April. Almost 90% of the attacks were by the Russian armed forces, it reported.

The strikes not only spread fear among civilians but also severely disrupt daily life by restricting movement and limiting access to food and medical services, the report said.

Associated Press writer Samya Kullab in Kyiv, Ukraine, contributed to this report.

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

A visitor examines a damaged drone made by Russia with western components during the International Conference on Expanding Sanctions Against Russia in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, June 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Visitors watch damaged Russian drones during the International Conference on Expanding Sanctions Against Russia in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, June 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

Visitors look at a damaged Iranian-made drone, Shahed, during the International Conference on Expanding Sanctions Against Russia in Kyiv, Ukraine, Friday, June 27, 2025. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

FILE - An Iranian Shahed exploding drone launched by Russia flies through the sky seconds before it struck buildings in Kyiv, Ukraine, on Oct. 17, 2022. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky, File)

A Russian drone attacks a building during Russia's massive missile and drone air attack in Kyiv, Ukraine, Tuesday, June 17, 2025. (AP Photo/Efrem Lukatsky)

ALEPPO, Syria (AP) — First responders on Sunday entered a contested neighborhood in Syria’ s northern city of Aleppo after days of deadly clashes between government forces and Kurdish-led forces. Syrian state media said the military was deployed in large numbers.

The clashes broke out Tuesday in the predominantly Kurdish neighborhoods of Sheikh Maqsoud, Achrafieh and Bani Zaid after the government and the Syrian Democratic Forces, the main Kurdish-led force in the country, failed to make progress on how to merge the SDF into the national army. Security forces captured Achrafieh and Bani Zaid.

The fighting between the two sides was the most intense since the fall of then-President Bashar Assad to insurgents in December 2024. At least 23 people were killed in five days of clashes and more than 140,000 were displaced amid shelling and drone strikes.

The U.S.-backed SDF, which have played a key role in combating the Islamic State group in large swaths of eastern Syria, are the largest force yet to be absorbed into Syria's national army. Some of the factions that make up the army, however, were previously Turkish-backed insurgent groups that have a long history of clashing with Kurdish forces.

The Kurdish fighters have now evacuated from the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood to northeastern Syria, which is under the control of the SDF. However, they said in a statement they will continue to fight now that the wounded and civilians have been evacuated, in what they called a “partial ceasefire.”

The neighborhood appeared calm Sunday. The United Nations said it was trying to dispatch more convoys to the neighborhoods with food, fuel, blankets and other urgent supplies.

Government security forces brought journalists to tour the devastated area, showing them the damaged Khalid al-Fajer Hospital and a military position belonging to the SDF’s security forces that government forces had targeted.

The SDF statement accused the government of targeting the hospital “dozens of times” before patients were evacuated. Damascus accused the Kurdish-led group of using the hospital and other civilian facilities as military positions.

On one street, Syrian Red Crescent first responders spoke to a resident surrounded by charred cars and badly damaged residential buildings.

Some residents told The Associated Press that SDF forces did not allow their cars through checkpoints to leave.

“We lived a night of horror. I still cannot believe that I am right here standing on my own two feet,” said Ahmad Shaikho. “So far the situation has been calm. There hasn’t been any gunfire.”

Syrian Civil Defense first responders have been disarming improvised mines that they say were left by the Kurdish forces as booby traps.

Residents who fled are not being allowed back into the neighborhood until all the mines are cleared. Some were reminded of the displacement during Syria’s long civil war.

“I want to go back to my home, I beg you,” said Hoda Alnasiri.

Associated Press journalist Kareem Chehayeb in Beirut contributed to this report.

Sandbag barriers used as fighting positions by Kurdish fighters, left inside a destroyed mosque in the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood, where clashes between government forces and Kurdish fighters have been taking place in the northern city of Aleppo, Syria, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)

Burned vehicles at one of the Kurdish fighters positions at the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood, where clashes between government forces and Kurdish fighters have been taking place in the northern city of Aleppo, Syria, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)

People flee the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood, where clashes between government forces and Kurdish fighters have been taking place in the northern city of Aleppo, Syria, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)

A Syrian military police convoy enters the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood, where clashes between government forces and Kurdish fighters have been taking place in the northern city of Aleppo, Syria, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)

Burned vehicles and ammunitions left at one of the Kurdish fighters positions at the Sheikh Maqsoud neighborhood, where clashes between government forces and Kurdish fighters have been taking place in the northern city of Aleppo, Syria, Sunday, Jan. 11, 2026. (AP Photo/Ghaith Alsayed)