5 Drones Heading for Moscow Shot Down as Explosions Heard in Kyiv

Key Facts

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said Russia shot down 5 drones heading for the capital in the early hours of Thursday, November 12. Sobyanin gave no further details about the drones or where they were downed. In Kyiv, a Reuters witness heard explosions in the early hours of the same day. It was not immediately clear whether the city had sustained damage. The events in the two capitals coincided with a new U.S. diplomatic push, a day after Russia-Ukraine talks in Abu Dhabi ended without a major breakthrough toward ending the war.

The U.S.-mediated talks lasted two days and ended on Wednesday, November 11, without major progress toward ending Russia's full-scale war, which is nearing its fifth year. But the two sides agreed to a broad exchange of prisoners of war, according to announcements by both parties. A Russian official described the potential exchange as possibly one of the largest since 1,000 soldiers from each side returned last year. Alexander Zorin, deputy head of the Russian General Staff's information department, told state television the operation could take place within two or three weeks. Carrying out the exchange remains a specific step agreed by the two sides, while the talks yielded no comparable breakthrough toward ending the war.

The Abu Dhabi meeting was the first gathering of the two countries' delegations in 9 months, with the sides still far apart on the terms of a settlement, according to the Associated Press. Outstanding issues include Ukraine's postwar security guarantees, Ukrainian territory occupied by Russia and Europe's role in any agreement. U.S. envoy Jared Kushner said trust was absent between the sides, calling that expected after a conflict of this kind. He added that territorial issues were the hardest to resolve. Reuters reported that disagreements over territory remained a major obstacle after the Abu Dhabi talks, highlighting the gap between agreeing on a prisoner exchange and reaching a political settlement.

Separately from the delegations' talks, U.S. envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff were scheduled to travel to Moscow on Thursday to meet Russian President Vladimir Putin. Reuters reported they would then travel to Ireland to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy. The meetings place Washington's contacts with both sides among the next diplomatic steps after the Abu Dhabi gathering. Available information did not indicate that the envoys' meetings would change the sides' positions on the outstanding issues. Territory, along with security guarantees and Europe's role, remains among the main issues awaiting attention in any subsequent negotiating process.

The Kyiv explosions and the downing of drones heading for Moscow came amid reciprocal attacks that continued in the preceding days. Ukrainian officials said Russia struck 6 electrical substations in central Ukraine overnight, while an attack on a market in the Odesa region killed 3 people. In Russia's Belgorod region, one person was killed in a Ukrainian drone attack, according to local officials. Ukraine's Energy Ministry also said Russian attacks on power generation facilities and substations were continuing. The Associated Press quoted the ministry as saying: "Attacks on the energy sector are not stopping." It was not immediately clear whether Thursday's explosions in Kyiv had caused damage to the city.

Russian forces control about one-fifth of Ukraine, while their battlefield advance slowed during 2026, according to Reuters. In Kyiv, the Ukrainian president described power and water outages as prolonged, while the acting head of the city's military administration warned of a winter that could be "as difficult as last winter or worse." On the diplomatic front, the main indicators for Russia's national accounts for the third quarter of 2026 were scheduled for release on November 13, according to the Russian statistics agency's advance calendar. The U.S. envoys' next steps include meetings with Putin and then Zelenskyy, while questions over territory, security guarantees and Europe's role remain unresolved. Zorin estimated that the prisoner exchange could take place within two or three weeks of November 11.