Ukraine drone barrage kills 4 in Russia, Moscow says

Russian officials said an overnight Ukrainian drone barrage killed at least four people and wounded about a dozen more, in an attack that pushed the war deeper into Russia’s interior and forced Moscow to defend its own capital region on a scale not seen since the full-scale invasion began.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said air defenses shot down 81 drones heading toward the capital overnight, while Russia’s Defense Ministry said 556 Ukrainian drones were intercepted over Russia and another 30 were stopped in the following two hours. Sobyanin said more than 120 drones had been intercepted over the previous 24 hours. The toll included 12 injured in Moscow, most of them construction workers near a checkpoint at the Moscow Oil Refinery.

Andrei Vorobyov, the governor of the Moscow region, said three people were killed there and four others were injured. Russian authorities also said one person died in Belgorod. Debris was reported near Sheremetyevo Airport, Moscow’s largest airport, and Russian outlets said the assault triggered disruption and alarms around airports and other infrastructure in and around the capital.

The barrage underscored how Ukraine’s long-range drone campaign has moved from symbolic harassment to sustained pressure on Russian logistics, air defenses and public confidence. The attack was described by multiple outlets as Moscow’s largest or most deadly in more than a year, and the biggest strike on the capital region since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. The scale of the interception claims also highlighted the intensity of the air battle, with Russia portraying the assault as one of the largest of the war.

Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the strikes were “entirely justified,” casting them as retaliation for recent Russian attacks on Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities. That linkage matters for both military and information warfare: Kyiv is signaling that Russian bombardment will carry costs far beyond the front line, while Moscow is trying to show that its defenses remain in control even as drones reach Khimki, Krasnogorsk and Subbotino.

The attack also fits a pattern of escalating cross-border drone warfare. A previous major strike on Moscow was reported on March 14, when Russian defenses said they intercepted 65 drones near the capital, followed by 54 the next day and 42 on the day after that. This latest barrage suggests a tactical shift by Ukraine toward larger, coordinated strikes aimed at stretching Russian defenses and challenging the Kremlin’s narrative that the war can be contained far from Moscow.