Ukraine says air defenses neutralized 114 Russian drones, two Iskander-M missiles overnight

Ukraine’s General Staff said early Tuesday that Ukrainian air defenses had neutralized 114 Russian drones in a continuing overnight attack that also included two Iskander-M ballistic missiles, with confirmed impacts at nine locations.

In an early-morning Telegram update for June 16, the General Staff said the attack unfolded “during the night of June 16 (from 18:00 on June 15).” It said Russia launched two Iskander-M ballistic missiles from the Rostov region and 132 strike UAVs from multiple locations in Russia. The drones included Shahed attack drones, including jet-powered variants, as well as Gerbera, Italmas and Parodiya-type decoy drones.

As of 8:30 a.m. local time, the General Staff said Ukrainian forces had “shot down/suppressed” 114 enemy UAVs over the north, south and east of the country. The wording is significant because the preliminary tally includes drones brought down by air defenses as well as those neutralized through electronic warfare. The General Staff said missile strikes and 16 attack drones hit nine locations, while debris from intercepted targets fell at eight locations. It also said the raid was still ongoing at the time of the update, with hostile drones remaining in Ukrainian airspace.

The military said the defense involved aviation, anti-aircraft missile forces, electronic warfare units, unmanned-systems units and mobile fire groups.

Separately, a broader Ukrainian Air Force radar summary for the same night, reported by Interfax-Ukraine, gave a much larger count. That summary said 681 aerial attack assets were detected — 70 missiles and 611 UAVs — and 632 were neutralized, including 50 missiles and 582 UAVs. Ukrainian official tallies can differ because agencies often report on different time windows or operational scopes, so the Air Force figures should be read as a separate count rather than combined with the General Staff’s 132-drone update.

Russia has repeatedly used mixed waves of attack drones and decoys in overnight barrages aimed at stretching Ukrainian defenses and complicating interception efforts. For readers tracking official battlefield updates, the latest figures are best understood as agency-specific snapshots released while operations were still underway.