A large-scale Ukrainian drone assault across Russia overnight killed four people, including an Indian national, Russian authorities said on Sunday, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described the attack as “entirely justified”.
Russia’s defence ministry said air defence systems intercepted 556 drones across 14 regions overnight, along with Crimea and the Black and Azov seas. Officials added that another 30 drones were shot down after sunrise, making it one of the biggest Ukrainian drone offensives since the war began.
Zelensky said the strikes came in response to Russia’s continued attacks on Ukrainian cities, particularly after a recent missile and drone assault on Kyiv that killed at least 24 people.
“Our responses to Russia’s prolongation of the war and its attacks on our cities and communities are entirely justified. This time, Ukrainian long-range sanctions reached the Moscow region, and we are clearly telling the Russians: their state must end its war.”
Ukraine’s defence ministry claimed Moscow and its surrounding region had faced “the largest-scale attack since the full-scale invasion began” in February 2022.
Commander of Ukraine’s Unmanned Forces, Robert Brovdi, recently told AFP that Kyiv was focused on expanding its long-range strike capabilities against Russian military targets.
In the Moscow region, Governor Andrey Vorobyov said a woman was killed after a drone struck a private home, while two men also died in the attack. India’s embassy in Moscow later confirmed that one of the deceased was an Indian citizen employed in Russia.
Vorobyov said infrastructure sites were among the targets.
Authorities in Moscow reported that more than 80 drones were intercepted overnight, with 12 people injured. Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said some of the wounded were construction workers near an oil and gas refinery hit during the strikes.
“Refinery production has not been disrupted. Three residential buildings were damaged,” Sobyanin added.
Although Russia’s border regions are frequently targeted by drones, attacks on Moscow — located roughly 400 kilometres from the Ukrainian border — are less common.
In the Belgorod region near Ukraine, officials said a drone strike on a truck in the Shebekino district killed one man overnight.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s air force said it intercepted 279 out of 287 Russian drones launched towards Ukrainian territory.
Efforts to negotiate an end to the conflict remain stalled, with Kyiv rejecting Moscow’s demands over territory in eastern Ukraine’s Donbas region, calling them unacceptable concessions.
The United States has encouraged both sides to resume negotiations, but diplomatic momentum has slowed since Washington shifted focus to the US-Israeli war on Iran earlier this year.
Following the end of a three-day US-mediated truce marking the anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany in World War II, both Moscow and Kyiv have accused each other of resuming attacks.
