Russia shoots down 33 drones hours before further talks

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Russian air defenses shot down 33 Ukrainian drones on Tuesday night in six regions of the country, on the eve of another round of negotiations between the two countries taking place this Wednesday in Turkey.

According to the Defense Ministry's military report, most of the airstrikes were concentrated in the Tula and Rostov regions, where 12 and 11 unmanned aircraft were shot down , respectively.

The remaining drones were destroyed in the Nizhny Novgorod (6), Bryansk (2), Kursk (1) and Kaluga (1) regions.

Russian authorities have imposed temporary restrictions on operations at airports in Nizhny Novgorod and Kaluga, the capitals of the regions of the same name, to ensure flight safety.

The airstrike came hours before the third round of Russian-Ukrainian talks in Istanbul, announced by the Turkish presidency.

The Kremlin has ruled out the possibility of “miraculous breakthroughs” in the new round of negotiations.

"Of course, there is no reason to expect any kind of miraculous breakthrough. Given the current situation, this is unlikely to be possible," Dmitry Peskov, the Russian presidential spokesman, said on Tuesday.

At the same time, he did not officially confirm Russian participation and expressed confidence that the third round would be held “this week”.

He announced that the negotiation agenda would be “very complex,” as it would require analyzing each side’s peace memorandums, the main points of which differ drastically.

Therefore, Peskov considered that the agreement on the exchange of prisoners of war and corpses reached in the first two rounds can already be considered a “fruitful” result.

According to the Turkish presidency, the meeting will take place at the Ottoman Çiragan Palace in Besiktas, where the last round of negotiations took place on June 2.