Ukraine launches hundreds of drones into Russia

Ukraine launched hundreds of drones across Russia on Sunday, killing at least six people in one of Kyiv’s largest aerial attacks of the war, Russian officials said.

Russia’s Ministry of Defense said it destroyed 822 Ukrainian drones overnight. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said about 600 drones were detected heading toward the Russian capital, with roughly a third destroyed over the Moscow region itself.

The strikes reached multiple regions. In the Moscow region, an 83-year-old man was killed after a Ukrainian drone hit a private home, local Gov. Andrey Vorobyov said. Vorobyov also said a Ukrainian attack sparked a blaze at a warehouse belonging to Russian retail giant Wildberries in the town of Podolsk. Images shared by Russian media outlets showed columns of black smoke rising from the site.

Farther south, in Russia’s southwestern Rostov region, a drone attack targeted three towns and killed five people, local Gov. Yury Slyusar said. He said the attack involved more than 150 drones, damaged several homes and a railway station, and sparked a forest fire.

Ukraine has intensified its attacks inside Russia this year, using long-range missiles and swarms of drones to target military industries and energy facilities. It has also increasingly struck large Wildberries depots, burning billions of dollars’ worth of merchandise and bringing the war deeper into Russian territory nearly 4½ years after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Russia also struck several Ukrainian cities on Sunday. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on social media that a Russian missile attack on Kryvyi Rih killed two people and wounded 14 others. He said another person was killed in the city of Sumy.

In Kyiv, a Russian attack sparked fires across the Ukrainian capital and injured six people.

“Wherever the Russians can reach with their ballistic missiles, they strike civilian infrastructure,” Zelenskyy said. “Since this morning, air raid alerts have continued in many regions – the Russians launched another wave of drones.”

The attacks underscored the scale of the escalating aerial war between Ukraine and Russia, with both sides reporting damage and casualties far from the front lines.