Russia says 13 Ukrainian drones shot down overnight

Russia’s air defence systems destroyed 13 Ukrainian drones overnight, Russia’s defence ministry said on Monday.
Twelve of the drones were destroyed over the Kursk region and one over the Belgorod region, both bordering Ukraine, the ministry said on the Telegram messaging app.
Blasts were reportedly heard in Kyiv and parts of the city were left without power early on Monday.
However, no Russian missiles reached Ukraine on Monday after the air force put the country on high alert, reporting that a large number of bombers were taking off from Russian territory for the first time in more than two months.
In anticipation of what the military expected to be a large-scale attack, Ukraine introduced preventative power blackouts across the country and and urged people to seek shelter.
“The air alert is related to the launch of cruise missiles from Tu-95MS strategic bombers,” the air force said on its Telegram channels.
But the missiles had not arrived by later on Monday morning. According to some Ukrainian military bloggers, the Russian bombers performed flights imitating the launch of missiles.
Several regions and parts of Kyiv were without power, and social media footage showed masses of people gathering in the city’s metro stations – which have served as bomb shelters since the start of Russia’s war in Ukraine in February 2022.
Power cuts were introduced in the Kyiv, Odesa, Dnipropetrovsk and Donetsk regions, Ukrainian energy provider DTEK said on the Telegram messaging app. All of Ukraine was put under air raid alerts.
Elsewhere, the Russian military has assembled a force of 50,000 soldiers, including North Korean troops, as it prepares to begin an assault aimed at reclaiming territory seized by Ukraine in the Kursk region of Russia, according to US and Ukrainian officials.
A new US assessment concludes that Russia has massed the force without having to pull soldiers out of Ukraine’s east – its main battlefield priority – allowing Moscow to press on multiple fronts simultaneously.
Russian troops have been clawing back some of the territory that Ukraine captured in Kursk this year. They have been attacking Ukrainian positions with missile strikes and artillery fire, but they have not yet begun a major assault there, US officials said.
Ukrainian officials say they expect such an attack involving the North Korean troops in the coming days. – Agencies