Ukraine drone attack kills 3 near Moscow, Russia says

A large-scale Ukrainian drone attack on the Moscow region killed at least three people and injured several others overnight, Russian officials said.

Andrei Vorobiev, the regional governor, said a woman died in Khimki north of Moscow and one person remained trapped under rubble. A man and a woman died in the village of Pogorelki.

India’s embassy in Moscow said a male Indian citizen was killed and three others injured, though it remained unclear whether those casualties were included in Vorobiev’s tally. Another person died in the Belgorod region bordering Ukraine.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described the strikes as an “entirely justified” response to deadly Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities.

Russian state news agency Tass called the strikes the biggest attack on Moscow in more than a year.

Earlier this week, a massive Russian drone and missile attack killed 24 people in Kyiv.

In Ukraine, eight people were injured overnight in Russian drone attacks and shelling in the central Dnipropetrovsk region, officials said.

Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, and Moscow currently controls about 20% of Ukrainian territory.

In a Telegram post early Sunday, Vorobiev wrote that “since three o’clock in the morning, air defence forces have been repelling a large-scale UAV [drone] attack on the capital region.”

He said four people – three men and a woman – were injured in the region, and a number of houses were damaged.

A private house was on fire in the village of Subbotino, southwest of Moscow, the governor added.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said 12 people were injured when drones struck an entrance to the city’s oil refinery, and three nearby houses were damaged.

Russia’s military said it intercepted 556 drones across the country, about 130 of them in the Moscow region.

Meanwhile, Sheremetyevo – Russia’s busiest airport serving Moscow – reported drone wreckage on its territory but said no one was injured.

“The situation in the passenger terminals is calm. Sheremetyevo Airport is providing stable passenger and aircraft services,” airport authorities said.

Later Sunday, Zelensky said Ukraine’s “long-range sanctions have reached the Moscow region,” referring to the latest drone attack.

“We are clearly telling the Russians: their state must end its war,” he wrote in a Telegram post.

Ukraine’s state security service, the SBU, said in a statement that together with Ukraine’s military it had struck several oil facilities and a semiconductor-making plant in the Moscow region.

It added that air defense systems were hit at the Belbek military airfield in Crimea, Ukraine’s southern peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014.

Zelensky had earlier pledged to retaliate for recent Russian attacks on Kyiv and other Ukrainian regions.

He said Saturday that this week Ukraine had already destroyed high-value Russian military equipment, including an aircraft, a helicopter and a cargo ship, and also attacked Russian oil facilities.

In recent months, Ukraine’s military has intensified strikes on key energy facilities across Russia.

Kyiv says these are legitimate targets because they allow Russia to continue its war effort.

Also overnight, Russia carried out more than 30 drone and shelling attacks on four districts of the Dnipropetrovsk region, top local official Oleksandr Hanzha said.

He said eight people were injured, and a number of houses were damaged or destroyed.

Three people were injured in the regional capital of Dnipro, and multiple fires were reported in the city.

On Saturday evening, a woman was injured in a Russian drone attack in Ukraine’s southern Zaporizhzhia region, local officials said.

In its latest update, Ukraine’s air force said Russia had launched 287 drones since late Saturday.

It said 279 drones were shot down or intercepted, but eight direct hits occurred at seven locations.