A U.S. assessment concluded that Ukraine's weekend drone strike damaged up to 20 Russian warplanes and destroyed about 10, U.S. officials told Reuters, revising down Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's higher estimate.
Still, the U.S. officials described the attack as highly significant, with one of them cautioning that it could drive Moscow to a far more severe negotiating position in the U.S.-brokered talks to end more than three years of war.
Russian President Vladimir Putin told U.S. President Donald Trump in a telephone conversation on Wednesday that Moscow would have to respond to the attack, Trump said in a social media post.
Trump added it "was a good conversation, but not a conversation that will lead to immediate peace."
Ukraine says it targeted four air bases across Russia using 117 unmanned aerial vehicles launched from containers close to the targets, in an operation codenamed "Spider's Web."
