Ukraine and Russia shot down several UAVs of each other at night

According to Reuters news agency, on September 15, the Ukrainian air force said that air defense units destroyed 10 of the 14 drones that Russia launched last night at its territory. In addition, Russia also launched two Iskander M ballistic missiles and a Kh-59 guided missile at the Odessa region in the south. Ukrainian forces also destroyed the guided missile but did not mention the Iskander missiles or report whether there was any damage caused by the attack.

According to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, over the past week, Russia has used about 30 missiles of various types, more than 800 guided bombs and nearly 300 drones to attack Ukraine.

Meanwhile, according to ABC News, on the same day, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that it had defeated a new attack from drones launched by Ukraine into the western region of the country.

The ministry wrote on its official Telegram channel that 29 Ukrainian drones were shot down by air defense systems overnight. Specifically, 15 drones were shot down in the Bryansk region, 5 in the Kursk region, 4 in the Smolensk region, 2 in the Orel region, and 1 each in the Belgorod, Kaluga, and Rostov regions.

On the morning of September 15, Russia shot down another Ukrainian drone in the Ryazan region.

Ukraine has not commented on the drone attack on Russia last night. Ukrainian leaders and commanders do not usually confirm or deny attacks on Russian territory.

Russia and Ukraine have traded missile and drone attacks as Russia launched a major drone attack on Ukrainian cities on the night of September 13 and 14. The Ukrainian air force said it had shot down 72 of the 76 Shahed drones launched at targets including the capital Kiev.

Russia also destroyed Ukrainian drones in two western regions on the night of September 13.

Earlier, on September 13, the Ukrainian Foreign Ministry announced that Kiev had shot down a total of 8,060 Shahed drones used by Russia since the start of the conflict. Ukraine accused Iran of supplying Shahed drones to Russia. Earlier, in May, the Wall Street Journal reported that Moscow was actively manufacturing Shahed UAVs with Iran's support on Russian territory. Both Russia and Iran have denied the accusations.

Most recently, Iran has also been accused by the West of supplying missiles to Russia. With that accusation, the US, UK, France and Germany announced that they would impose new sanctions on Iran, including measures targeting the national airline Iran Air.

Iran has denied the allegations. On September 10, Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman Nasser Kanani stressed that all allegations that Iran supplied ballistic missiles to Russia were completely baseless and untrue. Mr. Kanani said Iran would take appropriate measures to respond to the actions of European countries that Tehran said were against the interests of the Iranian people.

The Kremlin on September 11 denied allegations that Iran had transferred missiles to Russia, stressing that claims about various arms transfers were baseless.