BELGOROD, Russia — A Ukrainian drone struck a residential building in the settlement of Proletarsky in Russia's Belgorod region on Saturday, November 14, killing a mother, a father and their 24-month-old daughter at their home, Russian authorities said. One other person was injured, according to the region's operational headquarters.

Proletarsky, in the Rakitnoye district, lies about 20 kilometres (12 miles) from the border with Ukraine. The regional operational headquarters said the drone hit the residential building directly. Ukrainian officials had not commented on the Proletarsky strike in the reports available when this story was published, and the circumstances of the strike have not been independently verified.

Both sides report a heavy overnight drone exchange

Russia's Ministry of Defence claimed its forces intercepted 29 Ukrainian drones overnight, including several over the Moscow region. In the other direction, Ukraine's air force said Russia launched 96 drones against targets in Ukraine from Friday evening, of which 81 were shot down or electronically suppressed by early Saturday, and that drones hit eight locations.

Source: dpa report via Ekkow

Each side's figures are its own military's claims and could not be independently verified. Belgorod, which borders Ukraine's Kharkiv and Sumy regions, has faced repeated drone and shelling strikes throughout the war, and civilians on both sides of the border continue to bear the cost of the nightly aerial exchanges.

Strike comes days after record drone wave and Abu Dhabi talks

Saturday's deaths came two days after one of the largest aerial exchanges of the war, in which Russia said it downed 1,198 Ukrainian drones between late Thursday and early Friday, and as United States-brokered talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Abu Dhabi raised — without settling — the war's hardest questions.

In Abu Dhabi, US negotiators floated whether Ukraine would withdraw from Donbas in exchange for joining NATO — a question President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said he would put to a referendum only alongside firm security guarantees. Read: US floats Donbas-NATO question to Ukraine

Moscow demands a Ukrainian withdrawal from the parts of Donbas Kyiv still controls and opposes Ukraine joining NATO, whose members pledge to defend one another. Kyiv says it will not give up territory without comprehensive security guarantees, a properly funded army and reconstruction money.

For border communities such as Proletarsky, the diplomacy remains distant. What arrives each night is the drone war itself — and, as Saturday's deaths again showed, it is ordinary families who are caught in it.