Ukraine on Sunday launched one of its largest aerial attacks on Russia since the start of the war, firing hundreds of drones and killing at least six people.
This attack occurred as Ukrainian forces increasingly take the war into the very heart of Russia nearly four and a half years into the full-blown conflict sparked by Moscow’s invasion.
Russia’s Ministry of Defense said it destroyed 822 Ukrainian drones overnight, as some 600 drones were detected heading toward Moscow. A third of the drones were destroyed over the Russian capital region.
Burning Wildberries warehouses are seen following a Ukrainian drone attack in Koledino, Podolsk. via REUTERS
A firefighting helicopter flies above a burning Wildberries facility following a reported Ukrainian drone strike at the Koledino Industrial Park near Podolsk. STRINGER/EPA/Shutterstock
Five people were killed in a drone strike in Russia’s southwestern Rostov region, as more than 150 drones damaged homes, hit a railway station and sparked a forest fire, according to local Governor Yury Slyusar.
An 83-year-old man was killed after a Ukrainian drone hit a private home in the Moscow region, local Governor Andrey Vorobyov said.
He also said a separate attack had sparked a blaze at a warehouse owned by the Russian online retail giant Wildberries in the town of Podolsk.
Meanwhile, Russia launched a missile attack on Ukraine’s Kryvyi Rih, a major industrial city in the Dnipropetrovsk region — killing two people and wounding 14 others, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on social media on Sunday.
A further Russian strike killed one person in the northeastern historical industrial city of Sumy, Zelensky said.
A man and a woman were also killed when a Russian strike hit their home in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region, according to local military chief Ivan Federov.
Separate attacks on the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, wounded six people, after a blaze tore through one of the city’s largest book markets.
“Wherever the Russians can reach with their ballistic missiles, they strike civilian infrastructure,” Zelensky wrote.
Russia said it had targeted a metallurgical plant in Kryvyi Rih and several military-industrial sites in Kyiv, including a manufacturing facility for long-range Flamingo missiles.
These are increasingly key to Ukraine’s long-range attacks on Russia, with a Flamingo missile used on Saturday to attack a rocket research and production center in Samara, some 560 miles from the Ukrainian border.
With Post wires