Kyiv said earlier this week that it had carried out long-range drone strikes on fourairfields, located in Russia's Voronezh, Kursk and Nizhny Novgorod regions.
The "main targets" were warehouses storing fuel and "aviation weapons," Ukraine's military said. The four air bases house Russian military aircraft, including Su-34 and Su-35 advanced jets, the armed forces said in a statement.
These aircraft have launched missiles and devastating glide bombs, often out of the reach of Ukrainian air defenses, that have pummeled Ukraine for months and supported Russia's advances in the east. Ukraine said earlier this week it had destroyed an Su-34 over Kursk.
A Reuters report, citing a Ukrainian security source, said the strikes on the Russian airfields were designed to undercut Moscow's ability to use its jets for glide bomb attacks on Ukrainian territory.
Russia reported a massive wave of Ukrainian drone strikes on its territory at the time, saying a total of 117 uncrewed aerial vehicles had been intercepted by its air defense systems. A total of 37 were reported over Kursk, plus a further 37 over Voronezh, with 11 "destroyed" over Nizhny Novgorod region, Moscow said.
Shortly after Ukraine launched its Kursk push, the governor of Kharkiv—an area of Ukraine particularly devastated by glide bombs—reported a "significantly lower number of guided aerial bombs" hitting northeastern Ukraine.
