Ukraine launched one of its largest aerial assaults of the war overnight Thursday into Friday, firing nearly 1,200 drones at targets across Russia as Moscow pressed strikes of its own that killed at least nine people in Russia and three more in southern Ukraine, officials on both sides said.

Russia's Defense Ministry said it shot down 1,198 of the drones, according to AP reporting, while Ukrainian strikes also reportedly hit an oil refinery in Volgograd. Russia answered with strikes that hit a hospital in Kyiv and killed at least three people in southern Ukraine, and a separate Russian drone attack caused an oil spill in the Mykolaiv region, according to RTÉ.

Barrage comes as peace talks stall over territory

The exchange capped a week of U.S.-brokered negotiations aimed at ending the nearly five-year war. According to the Institute for the Study of War's latest assessment, Vladimir Putin has rejected surrendering territory his forces have seized, and Moscow says it will only let European officials take part in talks about a broader European security architecture — not in negotiations to resolve the war itself. American and Russian negotiators have in recent days floated folding in wider European security arrangements dating to the end of the Cold War, raising the stakes of an already fragile process.

The overnight barrage was one of the most intense single nights of drone warfare since Russia's 2022 invasion, underscoring how far apart the two sides remain even as diplomats shuttle between capitals. U.S. envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff met with Putin in Moscow earlier this week before flying to brief Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, part of an accelerating diplomatic push that has so far failed to produce a breakthrough on the central sticking point: land.

Ukrainian officials had not detailed full casualties or damage from the Russian response beyond the Kyiv hospital strike as of Friday, and both sides continued to trade blame over who bears responsibility for the stalled talks.