Ukraine says Russia launched massive attack with 67 drones

Debris from downed drone also found near Ukraine’s parliament building after overnight barrage in 11 regions.

The Ukrainian Air Force said it repelled a massive air attack by Russia across the country, shooting down 58 of 67 long-range drones that were launched overnight.

Debris from a downed drone was also found next to Ukraine’s parliament building in the capital, Kyiv, the Verkhovna Rada said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app on Saturday.

Air defence units were scrambled into action in 11 regions across Ukraine, the air force said in a statement on Telegram.

It also said the Shahed drones were launched from two border regions in Russia as well as from the Russian-occupied peninsula of Crimea.

There were no immediate reports on casualties from the attacks.

The Associated Press and Reuters news agencies reported that debris from one drone was photographed on the street outside the parliament building.

The bombardment follows a week of long-range attacks across Ukraine, including a missile strike in the city of Poltava that killed 55 people and wounded 328 more.

An attack on Wednesday in Lviv, close to the border with NATO member Poland, killed seven people, including a mother and her three daughters.

Ukrainian forces were also pressing on with strikes against Russia.

In the Russian border region of Voronezh, Governor Aleksandr Gusev said a drone attack sparked a fire and the detonation of “explosive objects” on Saturday.

In a social media post, he said a state of emergency had been declared for the region’s Ostrogozhsky district and that several villages had been evacuated.

He did not provide the names of the villages affected and urged followers not to share photos or videos of fire that could be geolocated online.

Meanwhile, Russia’s Ministry of Defence said on Saturday that its forces had seized another village in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, where Moscow’s troops have accelerated their advance.

In a briefing published on Telegram, the ministry said Russia had taken over the village of Kalynove, which lies southeast of Pokrovsk, a major Ukrainian logistics hub.

Ukraine’s legislature, the Verkhovna Rada, said debris from a downed Russian drone was found next to the parliament building in Kyiv [Handout/Press Service of Ukrainian Parliament via Telegram via Reuters]

Three people were killed and three others wounded by Russian artillery shelling of the town of Kostiantynivka in eastern Ukraine on Saturday, Donetsk region Governor Vadym Filashkin said.

President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has urged his allies to help Ukraine conduct long-range strikes into Russia, specifically on military airfields at a range of up to 300km (186 miles).

He also called on the United States to allow his forces to use its long-range weapons to strike deep into Russian territory.

On Saturday, Zelenskyy met Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni to discuss his peace plan to end the war with Russia and reconstruction with a focus on Ukraine’s energy system, he said in a post on social media platform X.

The two leaders met on the sidelines of the Ambrosetti Forum in Cernobbio, northern Italy, where Zelenskyy earlier rejected calls by Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban for a ceasefire, saying that Russian President Vladimir Putin had never respected earlier accords.

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Al Jazeera and news agencies