One of the largest Ukrainian drone attacks since the war began killed at least four people near Moscow and wounded a dozen more overnight Saturday into Sunday, with debris landing on Sheremetyevo Airport without causing damage or disrupting flights, according to CBS News.
A woman was killed after a drone struck her home in Khimki, a city just northwest of Moscow. Two men died in the village of Pogorelki, about six miles north of the capital, according to regional Governor Andrei Vorobyev. A fourth person was killed in the Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, after a drone struck a truck. One of the dead was an Indian citizen, according to the Indian embassy in Russia, which also said three other Indian nationals were among the injured.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin reported that 12 people were injured when drones struck near the entrance to the city's oil refinery. Sobyanin said the refinery itself had not been damaged. Russian air defenses shot down 81 drones headed for Moscow overnight, state news agency Tass reported. By midday Sunday local time, Russia's defense ministry said more than 1,000 drones had been shot down or jammed in the previous 24 hours, including 556 overnight across the country.
Sheremetyevo Airport, Russia's largest, confirmed that drone debris had fallen on its grounds but said no one was injured and that operations continued normally. "The situation in the passenger terminals is calm. Sheremetyevo Airport is providing stable passenger and aircraft services," airport authorities said, according to the BBC.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed the strikes and defended them as a direct response to Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities. Earlier in the week, a Russian drone and missile attack killed 24 people in Kyiv. Zelenskyy said the Ukrainian drones flew more than 310 miles from Ukrainian territory and that Ukraine was overcoming Russian air defense systems concentrated around the capital.
"Our responses to Russia's prolongation of the war and attacks on our cities and communities are entirely justified. This time, Ukrainian long-distance sanctions have reached the Moscow region, and we are clearly telling the Russians: their state must end its war," Zelenskyy said.
Ukraine's state security service said it struck several oil facilities and a semiconductor-making plant in the Moscow region, as well as air defense systems at the Belbek military airfield in Crimea. Russian state news agency Tass described the attack as the biggest strike on Moscow in more than a year.
Nigel Gould Davies, a senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London, said the large-scale attack appeared to be retaliation for recent Russian strikes on Kyiv. Russian drone attacks on Ukraine overnight wounded eight people in the central Dnipropetrovsk region, Ukrainian authorities said.
