Moscow was the scene during the early hours of Sunday of one of the largest drone attacks launched by Ukraine since the beginning of the war, in a massive offensive that caused deaths, injuries, and material damage in various parts of the Russian capital and its surroundings.
According to the Russian Ministry of Defense, air defenses intercepted and destroyed 556 Ukrainian drones over fourteen regions of the country, as well as the Crimean Peninsula and areas of the Black and Azov Seas.
Russian authorities described the episode as one of the most intense attacks recorded against Russian territory since the beginning of the large-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. Although Moscow has a sophisticated tiered air defense system, several drones managed to overcome the protective barriers and reach strategic targets and residential areas.
The governor of the Moscow region, Andrei Vorobyov, confirmed the death of at least three civilians and reported several injuries. A woman died after a drone struck a house in the Starbéevo district of Jimki, a satellite city located northwest of the capital. Additionally, a man was trapped under the rubble of the destroyed building.
In the locality of Pogorelki, in the Mitischi district, two other men died when debris from a downed drone fell on a construction site. Vorobyov added that in several localities near Moscow, such as Krasnogorsk and Istra, damage was reported to residential buildings and private homes, as well as several injuries resulting from explosions and falling debris.
The mayor of Moscow, Sergei Sobyanin, reported that twelve people were injured, most of them workers at the Moscow refinery, one of the targets hit by the drones. He detailed that the operational process of the plant was not interrupted despite the attack.
During the early hours, residents of areas near Domodedovo International Airport reported loud explosions. Between 04:00 and 06:00 local time, more than twenty detonations were heard in various sectors of southern Moscow. News agencies indicated that they were able to identify at least two long-range Ukrainian drones of the Liuti type, recognizable by their inverted V-shaped tail.
