At least 13 Russian aircraft were destroyed in the coordinated Ukrainian drone strikes, according to a Ukrainian official.

Veteran defence journalist Tyler Rogoway has warned that the United States is also vulnerable to attacks like yesterday when Ukraine took out nearly a third of Russia’s nuclear-capable long-range bombers with drones.

Eastern Ukraine has been contested territory since 2014, when Russian-backed fighters seized large swathes of the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Russia had already seized the southern peninsula of Crimea in February 2014 before annexing it soon afterwards.