The Russian army plans to launch up to 2,000 drones simultaneously against Ukraine, states German General Christian Freuding, head of the Ukraine Situational Center at the German Ministry of Defense.

The past 24 hours have witnessed a military escalation on the Russian-Ukrainian front.The Russian Ministry of Defense announced on Sunday that it had repelled intense Ukrainian attacks, confirming the interception and destruction of a total of 133 drones.

Russia attacked cities across Ukraine with hundreds of drones and a missile strike, hitting energy infrastructure and wounding at least 15 people.

Shahed-style drones are deadly systems that Russia has been using to strike Ukrainian cities for nearly three years.

Russia now controls more than two-thirds of Ukraine’s Donetsk region — the main theater of the ground war. Russian forces have carved out a 10-mile-deep pocket around the Ukrainian troops defending the crucial city of Kostiantynivka, partly surrounding them from the east, south and west.

Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Saturday that air defence systems had downed two drones en route to Russia's capital.