‘Massive’ Ukrainian drone attack on Russia kills at least six, says Moscow

Ukraine has launched one of its largest drone attacks since the start of the war, causing a fire at a distribution warehouse near Moscow and killing at least six people overnight, according to Russian authorities.Russia’s defence ministry said it had shot down 822 drones, while the mayor of Moscow, Sergei Sobyanin, reported that 600 drones were flying towards the capital’s region, of which 201 were destroyed.It was the biggest air raid on the Russian capital in two years, the mayor told the Tass news agency, although the rapid recent expansion of Ukraine’s drone’s capability could mean it was the largest attack wave since the start of the war in 2022.Russian drone missile attacks killed seven people around Ukraine, including two in the central city of Kryvyi Rih, while a Spanish F-18 jet shot down what appeared to be a Russia drone that had crossed the border into Romania.The Spanish fighter was part of a Nato patrol mission and shot down the drone at about 5am after it crossed into Romanian airspace. “The drone appears to be Russian,” a Nato military spokesperson said.A warehouse belonging to the Russian Wildberries distribution company was set on fire in Podolsk, south of Moscow, with photographs showing a blaze apparently engulfing the 200,000 sq metre warehouse, black smoke extending into the sky.Andrey Vorobyov, the governor of the Moscow region, said the assault was “one of the most massive drone attacks in recent memory” – and the Russian defence ministry said later that it had shot down nine Ukrainian cruise missiles and 1,478 drones in the previous 24 hours, though the figure cannot be independently verified.Ukraine has rapidly expanded its long-range, deep-strike missile and drone capabilities in 2026, allow it to attack warehouses, oil refineries, ports and military facilities at distances of up to 1,500 miles from its border.That has allowed Ukraine to nearly match the long-range strike capability that Russia has had since the beginning of the war, at a time when both sides’ air defences are stretched to the point of near exhaustion.Over the past month, Kyiv has shifted focus to attacking facilities linked to the Wildberries company, used widely by businesses to support online retail. Ukrainian attacks have struck about 20 warehouses and buildings in an effort to hurt the Russian economy and affect ordinary citizens financially.Five were reported killed in Russia’s southern Rostov region, which borders Ukraine. Its governor said a further 150 incoming drones had been destroyed. One person was reported dead in the attacks on the Moscow area.Russian attacks on Ukraine also killed two in the Sumy border region and three others around the country. A ballistic missile attack on Kyiv shortly before 3am injured six and caused several fires in the capital.Fire caused by the attacks destroyed a large part of the Petrovka book market in the Obolonskyi district in Kyiv overnight, with some booksellers reporting they had lost their entire stock in the inferno.Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, praised the work of the country’s emergency services and accused the Russians of attacking ordinary people. “Wherever the Russians can reach with their ballistic missiles, they strike civilian infrastructure,” he said in a social media posting.Over the past week, Zelenskyy said Russia had launched more than 1,550 attack drones, nearly 1,560 guided aerial bombs, and 62 missiles at Ukrainian cities and communities, most of them ballistic missiles of various types.Though Ukraine is effective at stopping slower-moving drones, it has little to no defence against high-speed ballistics, its stock of US-made Patriot interceptor missiles – the only weapons capable of knocking them out – having been run down.