Russia claims to have shot down 51 Ukrainian UAVs

According to a statement on Telegram, the Russian Defense Ministry said 18 UAVs were intercepted in the Tambov region, about 400km from the Ukrainian border, and 16 others were shot down near the border city of Belgorod.

The remaining UAVs were destroyed in the Oryol, Briansk, Lipetsk and Voronezh regions. One was intercepted in the Kursk region, where the Ukrainian army has been conducting a ground offensive since August and now controls several hundred square kilometers of Russian territory.

Russia has announced almost daily attacks on drones from Ukraine. Kiev claims the attacks, often targeting energy infrastructure, are in response to Russian bombing of Ukrainian territory.

Meanwhile, the US is preparing a new aid package worth 800 million USD for Ukraine, while the UK announced that it will lend this Eastern European country nearly 3 billion USD to support the country in producing and developing UAVs.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has confirmed the information about the US aid package for Ukraine. Mr. Zelenskiy emphasized that this amount is in addition to the $400 million aid package that the US announced for Ukraine to buy new weapons during a visit to Kiev by US Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin.

British Defense Secretary John Healey also announced that the country would lend Ukraine £2.26 billion ($2.94 billion) as part of a loan that the Group of Seven (G7) industrialized nations have pledged to provide to Ukraine from profits from frozen Russian assets.