Ukraine passed the first night in some two months without a mass drone attack by Russia overnight from July 12-13, although the skies were not entirely calm.
A Ukrainian Air Force statement released at 9 a.m. Kyiv time on July 13 said Russia had launched 60 Shahed attack UAVs and decoy drones of various types over the previous 24 hours.
“During the day, the enemy attacked the rear regions with strike UAVs, and at night, the front-line territories of Donetsk, Sumy, and Dnipropetrovsk regions,” the statement said.
The scale of the attack is much smaller than the kind of bombardment Ukraine has endured in recent weeks.
Russia has massively stepped up its missile and drone attacks this year, with numbers increasing every month since December, according to a monitoring group.
There were no immediate reports of casualties in the July 12-13 overnight strikes, but two people were reported injured by Russian shelling in Kherson, southern Ukraine.
The Russian attacks have regularly hit civilian targets including residential areas, hospitals, schools, and energy infrastructure.
Russia has also been pressing forward on the front lines — albeit with massive casualties among its troops amid fierce Ukrainian resistance.
Ukraine has hit back with smaller scale drone strikes aimed at what it calls military and military-industrial targets, including air bases, drone manufacturing plants, and the oil industry.
The Russian Defense Ministry on July 13 said that its air defenses had intercepted 36 Ukrainian drones in various Russian regions.
The governor of the Belgorod Region said that two civilians had been hospitalized after a private residence was hit.
RFE/RL cannot verify battlefield claims.
North Korea Pledges ‘Unconditional Support’ For Russia
The latest exchanges come amid ongoing diplomatic maneuvers. On July 13, North Korean state media reported that the country’s leader, Kim Jong Un, had pledged “unconditional support” for Russia’s ongoing invasion of Ukraine.
Kim was speaking during a visit by Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov. The North Korean leader also expressed a “firm belief that the Russian army and people would surely win victory,” media reported.
Also on July 13, South Korean media cited intelligence sources as saying that North Korea had now provided Russia with more than 12 million artillery shells since October last year.
North Korean soldiers helped Russian forces fight against Ukrainian troops after Kyiv mounted a surprise invasion of Russia’s Kursk region last August. US officials said more than 11,000 North Korean soldiers participated in the fight and suffered massive losses.
North Korea may have sent more soldiers to fight on the Russian side earlier this year, and has reportedly agreed to dispatch 6,000 military engineers and builders for reconstruction in the Kursk region. It has also sent short-range missiles, self-propelled howitzers and rocket launchers, according to the South Korean military.
