Ukraine bombarded Moscow with 400 drones in an overnight attack that left fires raging across the region.
An industrial park, fuel depot, warehouses and a residential high-rise building were among the sites hit.
Smoke could be seen billowing over the city of Podolsk in Moscow’s southern suburbs, some 30km from the capital, in footage shared by residents on Monday morning.
“Our long-range sanctions have produced results against logistics facilities and an oil depot,” Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, said as he shared clips of the aftermath of the strikes.
“We are responding, justly, to every Russian strike against our cities and communities.”
The strikes on Russia came a day after Moscow unleashed its largest ballistic missile attack of the war on Kyiv.
The five-hour attack, amid a protracted campaign to take advantage of the capital’s dwindling air defence resources, killed at least six people and wounded dozens.
The Kremlin’s forces have launched more ballistic missiles at Kyiv this month than they are capable of producing each month, according to the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank.
Ukraine’s retaliatory strikes saw drones launched at the Moscow region across Sunday night and Monday morning, according to Sergei Sobyanin, the Moscow mayor.
Footage captured by Muscovites showed long-range FP-1 strike drones sailing through the skies.
Andrei Vorobyov, the Moscow region governor, said the strikes had also hit Domodedovo, a city around 37km away from the centre of the capital which houses Russia’s fourth-busiest airport, and the Odintsovo district, a western suburb.
Smoke billows after Ukrainian drone attacks near Podolsk, Moscow – Reuters
Astra, an anti-war Russian news channel, identified fires at five sites across the region, including the sprawling 138 hectare Yuzhnye Vrata industrial park.
Yuzhnye Vrata is controlled by a fund connected to Sergei Roldugin, one of Vladimir Putin’s closest friends, according to Agentstvo, an independent Russian media outlet.
It houses a facility owned by Wildberries, a Russian e-commerce giant whose warehouses were targeted in a separate Ukrainian attack over the weekend.
The Moscow region has been targeted by an intensified wave of drone attacks from Ukraine in recent weeks. Over the weekend, Mr Sobyanin said Kyiv had launched almost 1,900 UAVs at the region between July 11 and July 18.
The Ukrainian attack on the Wildberries warehouses in the Moscow region took place overnight on Saturday. Eight people were killed and 62 injured.
The fire resulting from the attack was so large that its smoke plume stretched almost 200km across the country. The strikes could have wiped out up to 15 per cent of the online marketplace’s total warehouse space, a source close to the company told Russian outlet The Bell.
Credit: X/@saintjavelin | Telegram/supernova_plus
The strikes boosted morale in Kyiv, where protesters took to the streets over the weekend to demand the reinstatement of Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s popular former defence minister, and the dismissal of its controversial army chief.
Oleksandr Syrskyi, who has led the Ukrainian army since 2024, has faced growing scrutiny over alleged gross human rights abuses in a military unit under his patronage, as well as what is perceived as a Soviet-style command culture characterised by high casualties.
Mr Fedorov was fired amid a bitter rift with Commander Syrskyi. The modernising 35-year-old former tech minister had championed a technology-driven, “asymmetrical” approach to winning the war, while the 60-year-old Soviet-trained general has been criticised for his more conventional strategy prioritising assault infantry and artillery.
Over the weekend, The Financial Times reported that Mr Zelensky was considering dismissing the loyal commander amid political turmoil.
The outlet reported that the Ukrainian president was prepared to dismiss Commander Syrskyi if he could find a replacement able to ensure a smooth transfer of power without compromising the country’s defence.