In the early hours of January 2, the Russian military launched a wave of drone strikes on Ukraine. Ukraine’s Air Force reported that Russian forces deployed a total of 72 drones from Bryansk, Oryol, Kursk, and Primorsko-Akhtarsk.
By morning, Ukrainian air defenses had intercepted 47 Shahed drones over the Poltava, Sumy, Kharkiv, Kyiv, Chernihiv, Cherkasy, Kirovohrad, Dnipropetrovsk, Odesa, Kherson, and Mykolaiv regions. Ukraine’s military also reported that 24 additional Russian “decoy drones” were “lost to radar tracking (without causing harm).”
Local authorities have not reported any damage or casualties.
Separately, Russia’s Defense Ministry announced on January 2 that its air defense forces had intercepted 13 Ukrainian drones overnight across five Russian regions. Four drones were downed over Bryansk and Kursk, three over Belgorod, and one each over Voronezh and Kaluga.
The day before, Russian forces targeted Kyiv with drones, killing two people and injuring seven, according to the city’s military administration.
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