Poland said its air force intercepted a Russian reconnaissance aircraft over international waters in ⁠the Baltic Sea, calling the Russian flight a provocation and potential threat.

“The machine was flying in international airspace without a filed flight plan and with transponders turned off. There was no violation of Polish airspace,” the Polish army said in a social media post. Defence ​minister ⁠Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said ‌flights without transponders on could pose a threat to other aircraft and that its ‌pilots would always respond ‌immediately.

“Our aircraft intercepted a Russian Il-20 reconnaissance aircraft over international waters in the Baltic Sea. This is another aggressive action by the Russian Federation and a test of our air defense systems,” he wrote on X.

Earlier on Wednesday, the Polish army said it had undertaken military aviation operations ‌in Polish airspace as a preventative measure ​due to Russian strikes ‌on Ukraine.

“Ground-based air defence and radar reconnaissance systems that were activated have returned to standard operational activities,” the Operational Command of the Polish Armed Forces wrote on X.

Ukraine has gone from pleading for international help with its defence to offering foreign countries its expertise on how to counter attacks, thanks to its domestically developed drone technology.

Ukraine’s long-range drone and missile attacks have disrupted energy facilities and manufacturing deep inside Russia, with three regions reporting strikes on Wednesday.

The Russian defence ministry said that its forces intercepted and destroyed 286 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions, the illegally annexed Crimean Peninsula, the Azov Sea and the Black Sea.

On the 1,250-kilometre (780-mile) frontline, the advance of Russia’s bigger and better-equipped army has been slowing every month since October, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said.

Russia’s spring offensive has floundered, with Russian forces recording a net loss of territory last month for the first time since 2024, the Washington-based think tank said.

“Not only are Ukrainian defensive lines holding, but Ukrainian forces have managed to contest the tactical initiative in several areas of the front line even as Russia continues to lose disproportionate amounts of manpower to achieve minimal gains,” the ISW said Tuesday.

Russia unleashed a massive daytime drone attack on Ukraine on Wednesday, targeting critical infrastructure in the west, killing at least six people and prompting Nato-member Poland to scramble fighter jets, officials said.

Hungary condemned the strikes on areas of Ukraine with ethnic Hungarian communities and summoned the Russian ambassador.

Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky praised the Hungarian action as an “important message”.

“It certainly cannot be called a coincidence that one of the longest massive Russian attacks against Ukraine takes place precisely at the time when the President of the United States arrived for a visit to China,” Zelensky said on Telegram.

Volodymyr Zelensky has said Ukraine will keep up with its efforts to build pressure on Russia to end the war.

“We’re not giving up on diplomatic efforts, and we hope that pressure on Russia, together with negotiations in different formats, will help bring peace,” he said in a speech yesterday in Bucharest, Romania, to representatives of countries on Nato’s eastern flank.

“Sanctions are working, our long-range (drone and missile) capabilities are working, and every form of pressure is working,” he said.

His remarks come at a time the European governments are assessing the merits of opening direct diplomatic talks with Putin.

Europe has for years tried to isolate the Russian leader and punished his country with international sanctions.

Hungarian prime minister Péter Magyar said his new government has summoned the Russian ambassador over a drone attack near Hungary’s border, in a significant shift from his predecessor Viktor Orbán’s friendly relations with Moscow.

Russia fired at least 800 drones in a massive daytime barrage on about 20 regions of Ukraine on Wednesday, killing at least six people and wounding dozens, including children, in one of the longest attacks by Moscow in the four-year-old war, president Volodymyr Zelensky said.

At least 11 of these drones, including Shahed, entered Ukraine’s Transcarpathia region, which shares its border with Hungary and Slovakia.

“The Hungarian government strongly condemns the Russian attack on Transcarpathia,” Magyar told journalists, adding that foreign minister Anita Orbán will speak with the ambassador Thursday morning.

The foreign minister will ask “when Russia and Vladimir Putin plan to finally end this bloody war,” Magyar added.

“Thank you for your compassion and strong position!” Zelensky said on X after Magyar’s comments.

At least four people have been left wounded after Russia attacked Ukraine’s capital with a mass drone and missile attack in the early hours today, officials said.

Damage was recorded across six districts of Kyiv, the head of Kyiv’s military administration Tymur Tkachenko said.

He warned Russia was attacking the capital with ballistic missiles and drones.

In the Darnytsia district, a residential building partially collapsed, he said, burying people under the rubble. In the Dnieper district a drone hit the roof of a five-story residential building. Another building in the Dniprovskyi district was also damaged.

Explosions were heard across the capital in the early hours today as air raid sirens were sounded across Kyiv and other parts of the country.

• Russia is attacking Kyiv once again in a major barrage of missiles and drones, leaving four injured and damage across at least six districts of the Ukrainian capital
• The overnight attack comes after Vladimir Putin’s forces attacked Ukraine with more than 800 drones and killed six people on Wednesday, one of its biggest daytime aerial assaults ever
• The deadly attacks have continued on Ukraine despite Russian leader Putin and US president Donald Trump saying the war is coming to an end, suggesting progress between Moscow and Washington. But Volodymyr Zelensky categorically rejected Moscow’s bluff and said his forces are preparing for new attacks
• A defiant Zelensky has said Kyiv is not “giving up” on diplomatic efforts and will continue to pressure Russia to end the war. “Sanctions are working, our long-range (drone and missile) capabilities are working, and every form of pressure is working,” he said at a Nato gathering