Ukrainian security services have stepped up drone and sabotage operations against Russian combat aircraft and submarines this month, in what analysts see as one way to combat incessant Russian missile strikes against cities and energy infrastructure.

Russian missile and drone attacks killed at least three Ukrainians including a child on Tuesday, triggering widespread emergency power cuts and prompting neighbouring Poland to scramble jets.

Russian forces launched a missile and drone attack across Ukraine, killing civilians and hitting energy targets as negotiators pressed ahead with talks to end the nearly four-year war.

Russia launched a massive drone and missile attack on Ukraine’s energy facilities on Tuesday, killing several people and triggering countrywide power outages just as winter temperatures drop before the holidays.

Ukrainian overnight drone attacks targeted Moscow ​and sparked an industrial fire ‌in the Tula region, which ​lies directly south of the Russian capital, regional authorities said on Wednesday (December 24, 2025). At least three drones targeting Moscow were downed, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on the Telegram messaging ​app.

Through the Ukraine War, the Russian Navy has lost over 20 warships, submarines, landing ships, patrol boats, and support vessels, including its flagship, the Moskva guided-missile cruiser.

The SBU said that it used the drone to strike a Russian Sea Dragon maritime recon aircraft, a key step for its later attack on the submarine.

Russia has ordered a winter troop surge to break the stalemate in Ukraine, but Ukrainian drone attacks on logistics and resupply channels will undermine this offensive.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said he would be willing to withdraw his forces from the Donbas and establish a demilitarized, free economic zone if Russia did the same, a significant concession by Kyiv on a territory that it has hitherto said it would not relinquish any control of.