A storm of Ukrainian drones strikes Moscow, the largest since the start of the war
Ukraine launched the largest attack on the Russian capital, Moscow, since the beginning of the war more than four years ago, in an operation Kyiv described as “justified.”
Russia announced on Sunday that it had been subjected to a Ukrainian air attack involving nearly 600 drones, which resulted in four deaths across the country.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on social media that “our responses to Russia’s prolongation of the war and to its attacks on our cities and communities are fully justified.”
This comes three days after deadly Russian strikes against the Ukrainian capital that killed nearly twenty people, to which Kyiv had vowed to respond.
The Ukrainian president accompanied his message with a video showing what appears to be a refinery in flames, which Agence France-Presse was unable to verify.
The commander of Ukraine’s drone forces, Robert Brovdi, known as “Madiar,” said in an exclusive interview with AFP that Kyiv’s “priority” “remains the increased use of long-range strike capabilities.”
According to the Ukrainian Ministry of Defense, this attack on Moscow and its surrounding region is “the largest since the beginning of the Russian operation in Ukraine.”
Although the Moscow region, meaning the area surrounding the capital, is frequently targeted by drone attacks, the city of Moscow itself, located more than 400 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, is rarely targeted.
For its part, the Russian Ministry of Defense confirmed that its air defenses shot down 556 Ukrainian drones overnight across 14 regions, as well as 30 drones during the daytime.
Andrei Vorobyov, governor of the Moscow region (which does not include the capital itself), said that a woman was killed in the town of Khimki northwest of Moscow, and two men were killed in a village within the Mytishchi municipality northeast of the capital.
One of the victims was an Indian national working in Russia, according to a statement from the Indian embassy in Moscow.
Vorobyov also reported four injured people in the rest of the region, where several homes were damaged and infrastructure was targeted by attacks.
Konstantin, 39, a resident of the Butlikovo district in the Moscow suburbs, told AFP that the explosion “was extremely powerful and nearly knocked me out of bed.” He added, “When I opened the window, I saw smoke rising.”
In Moscow city itself, air defenses intercepted more than eighty drones, and an air strike injured 12 people, “mostly workers,” at a construction site near an oil refinery, according to Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, who confirmed that “the refinery’s production was not affected, but three residential buildings were damaged.”
In the Belgorod region bordering Ukraine, a man was killed overnight in the Shebekino area during a Ukrainian drone attack targeting a truck, according to regional authorities.
On the Ukrainian side, the air force announced Sunday that it had intercepted 279 Russian attack drones and decoys out of 287 launched overnight.
At least 24 people, including three minors aged 12, 15, and 17, were killed in Russian drone and missile attacks on Kyiv overnight from Wednesday to Thursday, according to a Ukrainian toll published on Friday, and around fifty others were injured.
Ukraine regularly carries out strikes inside Russian territory in response to the daily bombardments it has endured for more than four years. It says it targets military sites and energy facilities to reduce Moscow’s ability to finance its military operations.
A three-day truce had allowed a temporary halt to shelling in areas far from the front lines, coinciding with Russia’s commemoration of the end of the Second World War and the Soviet Union’s victory over Nazi Germany.
However, attacks resumed immediately after the truce ended overnight from Monday to Tuesday, following its announcement under mediation by U.S. President Donald Trump.
Negotiations between Russia and Ukraine, mediated by Washington, have been stalled since the outbreak of the war in the Middle East on February 28.
