Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said he would send a team of negotiators with Istanbul to conduct another round of peace talks with Russia as both countries carried out large-scale air strikes targeting each other's military infrastructure.
Sunday's confirmation comes after Zelenskyy accused Russian President Vladimir Putin of doing "everything" to undermine the talks to be held on Monday.
Before the negotiations, the two sides launched some of the most ambitious air strikes since the full invasion began in 2022.
Ukrainian security agency SBU attacked four airports deep in Russia, home to many strategic bombers used in the air strikes.
The official told the Financial Times that he added: "The SBU drone targets aircraft to blow up Ukrainian cities every night. More than 40 aircraft were reportedly attacked."
The plane "burned" at the Belaya Airport in Siberia, about 5,500 kilometers east of the Ukrainian border. At the Orionya Air Base on the Kora Peninsula near Murmansk; Dyagilevo Air Base 200 kilometers southeast of Moscow; the official said Ivanovo Airport 300 kilometers northeast of the Russian capital.
A video footage taken by Ukrainian reconnaissance aircraft and shared by the official appears to show a Russian airport on fire and drone attacks several aircraft. In another video, the voice of SBU chief Vasyl Malyuk was heard approving the attack.
According to people familiar with the matter, the attack (the attack, codenamed Cobweb) was more than a year ahead of schedule and was "personally supervised" by Zelenskyy. It uses dozens of small "first-person view" drones equipped with explosives.
The SBU smuggled the drone to Russia, followed by a small wooden mobile cabin. The drone is then hidden under the roof of the structures that have been loaded onto the truck. The roof was opened remotely on Sunday and the drone was pushed to Russian military airports.
"This is exactly what we need to win the war, it is an asymmetric conflict - military creativity like this," said Oleksandr Merezhko, head of the Ukrainian parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee.
Zelenskyy has blown up Putin in recent days and failed to provide a "memorandum" outlining the peaceful conditions in Russia. The memorandum has been promised to Kyiv and Washington ahead of the next round of negotiations.
Zelenskyy said the delegation of Ukraine will once again be led by Defense Minister Rustem Umerov, who has obtained his terms. The president said he was seeking a full and unconditional ceasefire, the release of all prisoners, the return of Ukrainian children who were forcibly brought back to Russia and the agreement to meet with Putin.
"The key issues can only be solved by leaders," he said.
The Russian delegation will be led by Vladimir Medinsky, who held failed talks with Ukraine in the early 2022 war, and the latest meeting in Istanbul last month. Russian Military Intelligence Agency head, Foreign Minister Mikhail Galuzin and Deputy Defense Minister Alexander Fomin will also attend the talks with the reasons of Russian experts.
Moscow launched 472 drones in Ukraine on Sunday in the largest drone attack since 2022, according to Ukrainian Air Force. The cities of Kharkif and Zaporizhzhia were reportedly exploded, while air defenses in Kiev were activated.
The Ukrainian Air Force said Russian forces also launched three ballistic missiles and four cruise missiles, saying the strike had been recorded at 18 locations. Three cruise missiles and 382 drones were shot down or blocked with electronic warfare aircraft.
A missile strike on the military training ground in the eastern part of the country killed 12 people and injured more than 60 people. Ukrainian ground forces did not disclose the location of the strike or the missiles used.
Deepstate, a war monitoring group related to the Ukrainian military, said Russian ground forces have stepped up their latest offensive in the Sumi-Ukrainian region, where they have controlled at least 110 square kilometers of territory.
Zelenskyy told reporters earlier this week that Moscow had gathered more than 50,000 soldiers in the region to attack the regional capital. Ukrainian authorities have ordered the forced evacuation of 11 villages in the area.