Ukraine Launches Major Drone Strike on Moscow Region

Ukrainian drones struck targets near Moscow overnight, killing at least four people and wounding a dozen others, according to local authorities. Debris fell on Russia’s largest airport without causing damage or affecting flights. Russian defenses shot down 81 drones headed for Moscow, state agency Tass reported.

A woman was killed after a drone hit her home in Khimki, a city just northwest of Moscow. Two men died in the village of Pogorelki, 10 kilometers north of the capital, according to local Gov. Andrei Vorobyev. One man was also killed after a drone struck a truck in the Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine.

In Moscow itself, at least 12 people were wounded, mostly near the entrance to the city’s oil refinery, mayor Sergei Sobyanin reported. The Indian Embassy in Moscow reported that an Indian worker died in a drone strike in the Moscow region, while three other Indian nationals were hospitalized with injuries.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed the drone strikes, saying that they were “entirely justified.”

““Our responses to Russia’s prolongation of the war and attacks on our cities and communities are entirely justified. Shortly after midday local time, it reported that more than 1,000 drones had been shot down or jammed in the previous 24 hours.”

Russian drone strikes on Ukraine overnight wounded eight people, Ukrainian authorities said. Residential buildings were damaged in the central Dnipropetrovsk region. Nigel Gould Davies, senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, said that Ukraine’s large-scale attack appeared to be retaliation for recent Russian attacks on Kyiv.