Ukraine launches biggest strikes on Moscow this year

Ukraine launched its biggest strikes on Moscow in more than a year, with dozens of drones attacking Russia’s capital in an audacious raid. The Sunday strikes, which Moscow said killed three civilians, demonstrate Ukraine’s growing ability to launch long-range strikes.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed the drone strikes, saying that they were “entirely justified.” Russia has repeatedly launched similar attacks on Ukraine’s capital and other cities during the war, and an expert said that the strikes appeared to be retaliation for recent Russian attacks on Kyiv.

In Ukraine’s strikes on Russia, a woman was killed after a drone hit her home in Khimki, a Russian city just northwest of Moscow, and two men died in the village of Pogorelki, which is 10 kilometers (6 miles) north of the capital, according to local Gov. Andrei Vorobyev.

Ukrainian drones had also damaged unspecified “infrastructure” and several high-rise buildings, Vorobyev said on social media. One man was also killed after a drone struck a truck in the Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, according to local authorities.

In Moscow itself, at least 12 people were wounded in the nighttime strike, mostly near the entrance to the city’s oil refinery, mayor Sergei Sobyanin reported. Sobyanin reported that the “technology” of the refinery hadn’t been damaged.

ussian defenses shot down 81 drones headed for Moscow overnight, state agency Tass reported, citing Sobyanin, marking one of the largest attacks on the city since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on Feb. 24, 2022.

Russian air defenses overnight destroyed 556 drones over Russia, the occupied Crimean Peninsula and the Azov and Black Seas, the Russian Defense Ministry said Sunday morning. Shortly after midday local time, it reported that more than 1,000 drones had been shot down or jammed in the previous 24 hours.

Zelenskyy said that the drones had flown more than 500 kilometers (310 miles) from Ukrainian territory, and that Ukraine was “overcoming” Russian air defense systems concentrated in and 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.

Russia attacked Ukraine with 287 drones overnight into Sunday, 279 of which were shot down or jammed, the Ukrainian air force reported. The strikes wounded 8 people in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region: three in the regional capital of Dnipro, four in President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih, and one in the district of Synelkove, Ukraine’s state emergency service said.