Russia said it intercepted 822 Ukrainian drones during a sweeping overnight attack that reached Moscow and Rostov, killed at least six people, ignited a major warehouse fire and coincided with fresh Russian strikes across Ukraine and a drone incursion into Romanian airspace.
By yourNEWS Media Newsroom
Ukraine carried out one of its largest long-range aerial assaults of the war Sunday, sending hundreds of drones deep into Russian territory in attacks that Russian officials said killed at least six people, damaged homes and infrastructure and triggered a major fire at a large retail warehouse near Moscow.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said Russian forces intercepted 822 Ukrainian drones overnight. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said approximately 600 drones were detected traveling toward the capital, with around 200 reportedly destroyed over the Moscow region itself.
The attacks reached residential and commercial areas as well as locations far removed from the battlefield.
In the Moscow region, an 83-year-old man was killed when a drone struck a private residence, according to regional Gov. Andrey Vorobyov.
A separate strike sparked a large fire at a Wildberries warehouse in Podolsk, part of a continuing series of Ukrainian attacks involving facilities connected to the Russian online retail company. Images and footage of the damage from the attacks circulated on X.
Farther south, more than 150 drones targeted three communities in Russia’s Rostov region, local authorities said.
Regional Gov. Yury Slyusar reported five deaths. The strikes also damaged residential properties and a railway station and ignited a forest fire. The extent of the Rostov-region attacks was also highlighted on X.
The scale of Sunday’s operation reflects Ukraine’s rapidly expanding capacity to attack targets far beyond the front lines with domestically manufactured drones and long-range missiles. Kyiv has increasingly directed those weapons toward Russian energy infrastructure, military facilities and industrial sites involved in supporting the war.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky also confirmed that Ukraine used its domestically produced Flamingo missiles against a rocket research and production facility in Samara, approximately 900 kilometers from the Ukrainian border.
The long-distance strike underscored Kyiv’s growing ability to reach strategic sites deep inside Russia without relying exclusively on shorter-range battlefield weapons.
Russia, meanwhile, carried out another wave of attacks against targets across Ukraine, producing casualties in several regions as both sides exchanged strikes well beyond the immediate front.
A Russian missile attack on Kryvyi Rih killed two people and injured 14 others, according to Zelensky.
Another person was reported killed in Sumy, while two additional people died after a Russian strike hit their home in the southern Zaporizhzhia region.
Attacks in Kyiv wounded six people and caused fires in the Ukrainian capital.
Moscow said its forces had struck a metallurgical plant in Kryvyi Rih along with Ukrainian military-industrial facilities in Kyiv. Russia said one of the targeted sites was involved in producing the Flamingo missiles Ukraine is now using for long-range attacks inside Russian territory.
The widening exchange of aerial attacks also crossed into NATO territory early Sunday.
Romania’s Defense Ministry said a Spanish F-18 fighter jet assigned to NATO air-policing duties shot down a drone after it entered Romanian airspace.
The Spanish aircraft detected the drone on radar and subsequently received authorization to engage it, destroying the aircraft shortly after 5 a.m.
Romanian authorities did not immediately determine where the drone originated.
The NATO interception was documented on X, adding another incident in which the Russia-Ukraine war extended beyond the borders of the two combatants.
Sunday’s attacks illustrated how the conflict has increasingly expanded from conventional fighting along established front lines into a long-range campaign in which both countries are striking population centers, industrial facilities, transportation infrastructure and military-production sites far from the battlefield.
For Ukraine, the reported deployment of hundreds of drones toward Russia — including large numbers aimed at Moscow — marked another demonstration of its growing domestic weapons capability. Russia’s simultaneous strikes across Kryvyi Rih, Kyiv, Sumy and Zaporizhzhia showed that Moscow continues to conduct its own large-scale attacks against Ukrainian cities and industrial targets.
The Romanian interception added a further dimension to the escalation, with a NATO aircraft engaging and destroying an unidentified drone inside alliance airspace as the cross-border aerial campaign intensified.
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