PUBLISHED on August 10, 2025, 08:27 AM EDT – Key Points and Summary – Just as reports of a potential U.S.-brokered peace deal emerged, Russia launched a massive overnight drone attack on Ukraine, deploying over 100 assets, including 104 Iranian-designed Shaheds.
-Ukrainian air defenses intercepted 82 of the targets, but 26 drones struck locations across the country.
-The timing of this significant escalation is critical, as it comes immediately before a planned meeting between Presidents Trump and Putin to discuss a deal that would reportedly require Ukraine to make significant territorial concessions, including ceding Crimea and the Donbas region to Russia.
Russia Strikes with Drones as Peace Talks Loom for Ukraine
Ukraine’s air force claimed in an August 8 statement that Russian forces launched more than 100 Iranian-designed Shahed-series kamikaze drones at Ukrainian targets overnight.
In the statement, shared on Telegram, the air force also claimed four jet-powered drones were deployed in the attacks.
“During the night of August 8 (from 20:30 on August 7), the enemy attacked with 108 aerial attack assets: 104 Shahed-type strike UAVs, various types of decoy UAVs, and 4 fast (rocket-powered) UAVs on routes: Shatalovo, Kursk, Bryansk, Primorsko-Akhtarsk (Russia), Chauda – temporarily occupied Crimea,” the statement reads.
The broad deployment of the weapons, not targeted at a single city, prompted a massive overnight defensive operation that put strain on Ukrainian systems and military units. Drones targeted regions in the north, south, east, and central parts of the country.
Ukrainian forces repelled the assaults using a combination of anti-aircraft missile systems, electronic warfare units, drone systems, aviation, and mobile fire groups.
As of 8am on August 8, authorities said that 82 aerial targets were shot down or suppressed, including three high-speed UAVs, 79 Shahed-type UAVs, and an unconfirmed number of decoy drones.
26 UAVs struck their targets in 10 locations, and damage was reported in eight additional sites as a result of falling drone debris.
The New York Times reports that Bucha, a suburb of Kyiv that has endured some of the most brutal assaults throughout the Russian invasion, was among the overnight targets.
Could This Complicate Peace Negotiations?
The strikes immediately preceded reporting that the United States and Russia are working to secure a peace deal that would require major territorial concessions from Ukraine.
Bloomberg reported that a deal under consideration would require Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to relinquish his country’s claims to the eastern Donbas region, parts of Donetsk and Luhansk, and the entirety of Crimea – the latter of which was annexed by Russia in 2014.
While Ukraine has yet to agree to the deal, Washington appears to be optimistic about their chances of securing agreement, with plans now in place for U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin to meet for talks some time next Friday in Alaska.
What a Ukraine Deal Might Look Like
Should Kyiv agree to the deal, it would also require Ukrainian forces to be removed from Luhansk and Donetsk.
Among the concessions reportedly being considered by Moscow is the withdrawal of Russian troops and an end to offensive operations throughout Kherson and Zaporizhzhia.
However, it remains unclear whether Moscow would consider dropping its claims to territories occupied by its forces elsewhere in Ukraine.
About the Author:
Jack Buckby is a British author, counter-extremism researcher, and journalist based in New York. Reporting on the U.K., Europe, and the U.S., he works to analyze and understand left-wing and right-wing radicalization, and reports on Western governments’ approaches to the pressing issues of today. His books and research papers explore these themes and propose pragmatic solutions to our increasingly polarized society. His latest book is The Truth Teller: RFK Jr. and the Case for a Post-Partisan Presidency.
More Military
America Almost Had to Invade Japan
s
August 11, 2025 at 12:06 am
Is the WEST of 2025 now defined differently than in 2024?
The op-ed shows that 2025 Europe is incapable of a long 4 year role other than as submissive vassal states of MAGA POTUS Trump. That there is zero state comment and European roundtable debate of the 11 year old “UNILATERAL”, greenlighting by a USA POTUS to the re-start of an ancient 1000 year old russkie genocide of Ukrainians is so very blatant +, therefore, even more morally repugnant.
An oppression/aggression genocide committed by Putin’s ethic group for centuries, against Ukrainians was so very recently on display thru much of eastern Europe. Or, has 2025 Europe refused to redress past wrongs of the ethnic russkie in the year 2025 (present)?
More repugnant ( one thinks) is that the 2025 European MSM is now collectively guilty for oppression committed that it does not extensively create coverage for.
The 2025 European MSM could, should, reveal the collective behaviour of the Yankee MSM in graphic and extensive detail. The Yankee Doodle Dandy may not have the experience + insight of the European gestault. Therefore, the consequences of the actions of a rogue MAGA POTUS, is not just depicted, enumerated, reviewed in the 2025 Yankee MSM. That the US MSM may stonewall the 2025 European reality, is true, but, most necessary the European voice was emitted in the international sphere. The Kantian and neo-kantian caveats to wait to be objective can be applied by later academic + sociological reviewers.
That the 2025 Europe remains in such thralldom to Trump is, suddenly, shocking to those trapped inside the MAGA POTUS Trump state.
The Europe of 2025 needs to recall the Balkan Wars in this context. The recent 91-95 era Balkan was a wake-up call for all in Europe. The average US voter has next to zero recall of this very recent war. Why is that? Or, is this statement wrong? The majority of US voters are Informed?
The claim is that the US citizen is ignorant of the preparation for this war by Serbia and the 1986 statement that the cudgel of minority rights for Serbs, the language, be used as the sole concern.
The 2014 POTUS Obama willfully ignored this same well known scam used by the Serbian state friend, the prime vile enemy of the WEST in the long Cold War, Commie Putin. POTUS Obama blatantly betrayed the WEST in 2014 with his Democrat Cabal’s unilateral greenlighting of the Loss of the WEST’s geopolitical advantage of ownership of the Ukraine’s Crimean soil, families and Black/Azov Sea zones to the very same prime, vile NATO Cold War enemy, tsarling Putin.
The 2025 European states should be all over this 2014 Betrayal and, more importantly, it’s 2025 evil, evil enhancement by the MAGA POTUS Trump Cabal. Should be, but, it seems they are not? Why not? Why can not 2025 Europe not see the evil scheme of the MAGA POTUS that the Ukrainian state is being forced into. The evil harm will slimy seep over into every European state first, not the uninformed tens of millions in whatever US state, who cannot find most EU states on a map.
The 2014 Betrayal of the WEST is hushed up by the US structure. If the path was transparent, the exact number of Hushes would be evident as, say in Israel.
The Europe of Today, urgently needs a leader of the WEST or at least Europe. The EU tangible apparatus, as is well seen, is missing from this intangible leadership role. Who is Europe will stand up to the coming scam from the MAGA POTUS Trump’s Cabal? Giving up independent Ukraine was planned for by the inner state way back in 2013-14 just as Serbia planned way back in 1986 how to package it’s methodology of psychological seducement of the WEST. Everyone saw the WEST’s huge, massive cash flow to the UN and the idiocy of their actions.
Who were the backroom buddies of Serbia back in 1986? Hey, the same ole buddy as of 2025 Trump: russkie butcher Putin! Does the above wake up anyone in any news room in any state in or beside Europe? How about at least stop the sound snoring? -30-