Ukraine’s drone attack on Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a visit to Istanbul for direct peace talks with Russia

KYIV, Ukraine — A Ukrainian drone attack has destroyed more than 40 Russian planes deep in Russia’s territory, a Ukrainian security official told The Associated Press on Sunday, while Russia pounded Ukraine with missiles and drones a day before the two sides meet for a new round of direct talks in Istanbul.

The official, who spoke on condition of anonymity to disclose operational details, said the attack took over 1 1/2-year to execute and was personally supervised by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy.

The attack was disclosed on the same day as Zelenskyy said Ukraine will send a delegation to Istanbul for a new round of direct peace talks with Russia on Monday.

Defense Minister Rustem Umerov will lead the Ukrainian delegation, according to Zelenskyy. “We are doing everything to protect our independence, our state and our people,” Zelenskyy said.

Ukrainian officials had previously called on the Kremlin to provide a promised memorandum setting out its position on ending the war before the meeting takes place. During the talks, Moscow would share its memorandum.

The statement said there were no formations or mass gatherings of personnel at the time of the strike. The loss of personnel resulted in the creation of an investigative commission to uncover the circumstances of the attack.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Vladimir Putin declared Sunday that the attack on Oleksiivka, the northern border area of Ukraine, was a “Russian Pearl Harbor”

The rear of the active front line has Russian strike drones that are able to strike.

Ukraine’s forces suffer from manpower shortages and take extra precautions to avoid mass gatherings as the skies across the front line are saturated with Russian drones looking for targets.

“If it is established that the actions or inaction of officials led to the death or injury of servicemen, those responsible will be held strictly accountable,” the Ukrainian Ground Forces’ statement said.

Russia’s Ministry of Defense said Sunday that it had taken control of the village of Oleksiivka in Ukraine’s northern Sumy region. Russian forces make steady gains over the course of the weekend as Ukrainian authorities ordered more mandatory evacuations in 11 settlements.

The top army chief in Ukranian said Saturday that Russian forces were focused on Pokrovsk, Toretsk and Lyman in the eastern region, as well as the Sumy border area.

The ministry didn’t give any details on the thwarted attacks or the arrests made on other bases. There were no injuries in the attacks.

Russia’s Defense Ministry later said that the attacks on the bases did not cause a lot of damage.

“Our people operated in different Russian regions in three time zones,” he said. On the eve of the operation, we were taken out of Russian territory. Those who aided us are safe.

In his video address, the Ukrainian President said that an operation using 118 drones had been planned for more than one year and a half by the security service of Russia.

A video posted online shows the drones taking off from a truck bed while the Russian narrator lets obscenities fly. A serviceman in Russia swears into a camera while planes burn behind him. One pro-Kremlin military blogger referred to the attack as a “Russian Pearl Harbor.”

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At least seven people were killed and more than 104 injured after a bridge collapsed on a passenger train traveling through western Russia’s Bryansk region Saturday night — sending debris and several trucks onto the train compartments below.

Russia’s Investigate Committee said it launched a criminal probe into both incidents but backtracked on claims that the bridges had collapsed due to planted explosives.

A buffer zone so large that it prevents terrorists from entering Russia in the future will be our answer, said a senior member of Russia’s upper house Federation Council.

While Ukrainian authorities did not comment on either train derailment, Ukraine’s military intelligence did confirm a hit on a Russian military train moving supplies in an occupied part of the Ukrainian region of Zaporizhzhia.

The Ukrainian army said that a missile hit the location of one of the training units and killed 12 soldiers and injured more than 60. Ukraine’s military rarely confirms losses and did not disclose the precise location of the training camp, though Zelenskyy said in his evening address that it was in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region.

The commander of Ukraine’s armed forces, Major General Mykhailo Drapatyi, submitted his resignation after the attack “out of a personal sense of responsibility” for the casualties. He wrote on his Facebook page, “An army that nobody is held responsible for losses dies from within.”

In the lead-up to a possible summer offensive, the Kremlin massed 50,000 troops near the border with northeastern Ukraine, according to the Ukrainian government, despite the fact that Moscow and Kyiv have been holding peace talks under pressure from the US.

Writing on social media, Zelenskyy said his priorities for the talks include a full and unconditional ceasefire, the release of prisoners and the return of abducted children.

President Trump has been a strong advocate for the direct talks — saying their progress, or lack thereof, will do much to determine the future of U.S. engagement in the Ukraine conflict.

Yet if Moscow was seen as driving the terms of negotiations, political observers in Moscow suggested Ukraine’s surprise drone operation had at least undermined that dynamic for now.

The Ukrainian delegation headed to Istanbul is not feeling like the loser of the war, wrote Bovt in a post to social media.

A statement was issued by the head of Ukraine’s security services that claimed that the enemy had been bombing the country almost every night from these aircraft.

The Security Service of Ukraine smuggled first-person view drones, laden with small explosives, onto trucks that were driven deep into Russia. The operation was recognized by Ukrainian officials as a much-needed win.

After more than three years of Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine, this carefully planned attack, intended to hit bombers that launch missiles on Ukrainian cities, was celebrated by Ukrainians, who called it “Operation Trojan Trucks” on social media.