Ukrainian forces launched one of their biggest drone attacks on Russia since Moscow’s invasion more than four years ago, firing almost 800 drones into its neighbor only two days after a similar salvo, officials said on Tuesday. Meanwhile, a Russian missile strike on a village in northeastern Ukraine’s Kharkiv region killed at least 10 people and wounded 17 others as the barrage demolished homes, officials said, per the AP. The countries are locked in an escalating duel of long-range aerial strikes. Fighting on the roughly 780-mile front line in eastern and southern Ukraine is restricted by large numbers of drones and ground robots threatening troop movements, and neither side is making significant battlefield progress, analysts say.
Russian air defenses overnight intercepted 791 Ukrainian drones over a number of regions, as well as annexed Crimea and the Black and Azov seas, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said, in what was the second-largest drone attack since January 2025, according to an AP tally. More than 600 Ukrainian drones flew toward the Moscow region, where 180 were shot down, Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said, without elaborating. Officials reported no deaths or major damage. Ukraine has increasingly launched swarms of hundreds of drones to try to overwhelm Russian air defenses.
In the region that surrounds the capital, three people were wounded, Gov. Andrei Vorobyov said. Three people were also wounded in the adjacent Ryazan region, where three private houses were damaged, Gov. Pavel Malkov said. The overnight attack started a fire at a warehouse belonging to Wildberries, Russia’s biggest online retailer, in an industrial zone. Ukraine has repeatedly targeted the company, which it says helps supply the Russian military—an allegation that Moscow denies. Wildberries said its facility sustained “insignificant damage.”
Coverage of the attack in state and Kremlin-backed Russian media was mostly muted, as is often the case. Russia’s main TV channels—state-run Russia-1 and Channel One—didn’t mention the attack at all in their morning news bulletins. Over the past year, Ukraine has devised and deployed domestically produced long-range drones for strikes deep inside Russia. Its drone technology has impressed governments and defense manufacturers around the world. Officials in Kyiv aim to make the Russian public feel the war’s consequences and pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin into negotiating a peace settlement. Putin has so far shown no sign he intends to stop the invasion. More here.