Regional leaders claim that more than 140 drones attacked areas including the Moscow suburbs, where at least one person is reported dead.
More than 140 Ukrainian drones targeted multiple Russian regions overnight, according to Russian authorities, killing at least one person.
If independently confirmed, the incident will mark one of the largest drone attacks on Russian territory since Russia mounted its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
Moscow region Governor Andrei Vorobyov said a woman died and three people were injured in the town of Ramenskoye, just outside the Russian capital, where drones hit two multistory residential buildings and started fires. Five residential buildings were evacuated due to falling drone debris, Vorobyov said.
The authorities temporarily shut down three airports just outside Moscow, diverting 48 flights to other airports.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said drone debris fell on a private house on the outskirts of the city, but no one was hurt. He counted over a dozen drones heading toward Moscow that were shot down by air defences as they were approaching the city.
Overall, Russia’s Defence Ministry said it “intercepted and destroyed” 144 Ukrainian drones over nine Russian regions, including those on the border with Ukraine and those deeper inside Russia.
The air war
The reported barrage would be the second massive Ukrainian drone attack on Russia this month.
On 1 September, the Russian military said it intercepted 158 Ukrainian drones over more than a dozen regions in what Russian media described as the biggest Ukrainian drone barrage since the start of the war.
Russia’s Investigative Committee announced a criminal investigation into what it described as a terror attack.
Russia, meanwhile, has been pummelling Ukraine with missiles, glide bombs and its own drones. The United Nations says 10,000 civilians have been killed in the invasion.
With Ukrainian officials complaining that weapons deliveries pledged by the country’s Western partners fall short of what the Ukrainian military needs and commonly arrive long after they were promised, the country has invested a lot of effort in developing domestic drone production, extending its drones’ range, payload and capabilities.
The Ukrainian Armed Forces are increasingly using “drone blitzes” to slow Russia’s war machine, disrupt Russian society and poke the Kremlin.
Russia and Ukraine are fighting hard over crucial strategic towns in eastern Ukraine’s Donetsk region, while Ukraine last month launched a bold incursion into Russia’s Kursk border region.
The Kremlin claims that its forces are nonetheless making advances in Donetsk, but Kyiv insists it has slowed the Russian advance.
