Two people were killed in a Ukrainian drone attack on Russia’s Smolensk region overnight, Governor Vasily Anokhin said on Wednesday.
“Overnight, the Smolensk region came under a massive drone attack by the Ukrainian armed forces. Air defence forces of the defence ministry destroyed 37 enemy drones. … Two people were killed,” Anokhin said on the Russian social media platform Max.
He said drone debris hit a multi-storey building in the city of Yartsevo, causing a fire. Emergency ministry workers evacuated residents, and 10 people were rescued from the immediate fire zone, he said.
“A temporary accommodation point has been set up for the building’s residents. After the building is inspected, a decision will be made on whether people can return to their apartments,” Anokhin said.
Meanwhile, the drone attack repelled in the Leningrad region overnight on November 11 was the largest since the start of 2026, according to calculations by Russia’s TASS news agency based on data from Governor Alexander Drozdenko.
Drozdenko said 150 drones were preliminarily destroyed over the region overnight. A fire broke out in the Ust-Luga port zone because of the attack, and three workers were injured, with no threat to their lives, he said.
The previous largest attack this year was on October 18, when 145 drones were shot down, followed by June 6, with 144, TASS said. On November 9, 113 drones were destroyed over the region, it added.
In a separate statement, the Russian defence ministry said its forces continued drone strikes on energy infrastructure supporting Ukrainian defence industry enterprises and on ships carrying military cargo.
It said overnight strikes hit a 330-kilovolt (kV) substation in Kryvyi Rih in the Dnipropetrovsk region and two substations, of 110 kV and 330 kV, in the villages of Mayaki and Usatovo in the Odessa region.
It also said a dry cargo ship carrying weapons and military equipment for Ukrainian forces was hit in the Black Sea southwest of Odessa.
Ukrainian authorities confirmed Russian strikes on multiple regions. Ukraine’s State Emergency Service said six people were injured in a Russian attack in the Zaporizhzhia district, and one person was injured in a Russian strike in the city of Kharkiv.
The claims from both sides could not be independently verified.
The reports come as a new round of US-mediated peace talks between Russia and Ukraine began in the Emirati capital Abu Dhabi on Tuesday.
Moscow and Kiev last held US-mediated peace talks earlier this year, with three rounds taking place on January 23-24, February 4-5 and February 17-18. The first two were held in Abu Dhabi, while the third took place in Geneva.
