Russia increased the intensity of its long-range drone attacks on Ukrainian cities by around 44% in the week following President-elect Donald Trump’s election victory, an ABC News analysis shows.

The size and complexity of drone attacks by both Russia and Ukraine have been steadily increasing since the full-scale war began in February 2022. The past five weeks have seen around 4,500 UAVs cross the shared border in either direction.

But Trump’s electoral victory — confirmed in the early hours of Nov. 6 — aligned with an uptick in Moscow’s use of Iranian-produced Shahed strike drones to bombard Ukrainian targets nationwide.

The week since Trump’s win saw Russia launch 641 strike drones into Ukraine, per daily figures published by Ukraine’s air force — an average of more than 91 UAVs each day.

Source-ABC