Moscow intercepts 43 drones as Kyiv reports nearly 200 battles
Shafaq News – Kyiv / Moscow
On Thursday, Russia and Ukraine exchanged claims of hundreds of overnight clashes and strikes across several regions.
The Russian Ministry of Defense announced that its air defense units intercepted 43 Ukrainian drones overnight, including 23 over Rostov, 11 over Volgograd, five over Kursk, three over Crimea, and one over Belgorod. It further stated that tank crews from the “Zapad” group destroyed fortified positions and concentrations of Ukrainian troops in the Luhansk People’s Republic (LPR).
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s General Staff recorded 184 combat encounters within a single day. According to its account, Russian forces launched one missile and 95 airstrikes, dropping 153 guided bombs, while employing more than 6,000 kamikaze drones and carrying out nearly 4,800 artillery and rocket barrages. Strikes hit Zaporizhia’s Zaliznychne, Rizdvyanka, Kamianske, Hryhorivka, and Veselyanka, as well as Antonivka and Inhulets in Kherson.
Kyiv stressed that its defenders repelled assaults across Kupiansk, Lyman, Kramatorsk, Toretsk, Pokrovsk, Novopavlivka, Orihiv, and Kherson. In Pokrovsk alone, forces blocked 69 Russian offensives in and around nearby villages. Ukrainian troops claimed to have killed 930 Russian personnel in the past 24 hours and destroyed two tanks, 33 artillery systems, 390 drones, and 122 vehicles.
State-run Ukrinform confirmed that Russian strikes killed two civilians in Donetsk region and injured 11 others, while seven people were wounded in Kherson.
На Херсонщині минулої доби через російські удари - семеро постраждалих https://t.co/fIdOIjW9PN
— Ukrinform (@UKRINFORM) September 18, 2025
President Volodymyr Zelenskyy accused Russia of deliberately targeting civilians, energy infrastructure, and railway facilities in what he described as an attempt to destabilize logistics and create social pressure.
Russia continues to strike civilian targets, hitting energy infrastructure and railway facilities. Their goal is to destabilize logistics and create social pressure. In turn, we carried out some successful operations in response, which created a big social uproar in Russia. But…
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) September 17, 2025
Turning to long-term security, Zelenskyy underscored that Kyiv is negotiating Article 5–like guarantees with the United States and expects bilateral decisions soon. He highlighted sanctions as essential to deterring renewed Russian aggression and called for the use of frozen Russian assets to support Ukraine’s reconstruction.
When we speak about security guarantees for Ukraine, there are several key elements. First, the Ukrainian army. We already agreed on what we need in the sky, at sea, and on the ground. Our partners now understand the scale of these needs, but the important thing is that we are on…
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) September 17, 2025
