Ukrainian Drones Kill Two in Moscow Region Overnight
More than 650 drones were launched toward Moscow overnight, officials said, in one of the largest attacks of the war. Nine people were hurt, dozens of homes were damaged, and a fuel depot reportedly burned.
Two people were killed and nine more injured overnight when a wave of Ukrainian drones hit the Moscow region, the regional governor said on Tuesday.
More than 650 drones flew toward Moscow between Monday evening and Tuesday morning, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said. Most were shot down, he said. Governor Andrei Vorobyov said 185 drones were downed across 16 municipalities in the region.
The dead were a 71-year-old man pulled from the rubble of a house and a 20-year-old man found in a nearby village, Vorobyov said. Forty-seven private houses were damaged across seven municipalities, he said. A warehouse caught fire in the region, the state news agency TASS reported.
Moscow’s four airports shut for periods overnight, disrupting hundreds of flights, The Sun reported. At Sheremetyevo, one of Russia’s largest airports, passengers were told to take shelter in underground car parks. The head of Domodedovo, home to the capital’s third-largest airport, said crews were working to restore electricity to villages hit by the drones.
Fuel depot reportedly hit
One of the apparent targets was the Volodarskaya oil pipeline station outside Moscow, one of the largest fuel depots near the capital, according to reports. The Russian investigative outlet Astra said locals reported two storage tanks burning by morning. The facility is operated by Transnefteprodukt, part of state-owned Transneft, and supplies fuel to Moscow’s three main airports — Sheremetyevo, Domodedovo and Vnukovo. The reports could not be independently verified.
Ukraine’s defense ministry said on Monday that more than half of Russia’s oil refining capacity had been knocked out by Ukrainian strikes. Kyiv has stepped up long-range attacks on Russian energy infrastructure this year to sap Moscow’s war economy, and Russia has been pounding Ukrainian cities in return.
Russia also struck overnight. In Ukraine, at least five people were injured in a strike on a residential building in the city of Zaporizhzhia, and 11 others were rescued from the building, Ukrainian emergency services said. Two bridges across the Dnipro River were hit, and a 49-year-old woman was killed and medical staff wounded in Kramatorsk, reports said.
Neither side’s casualty and damage claims could be independently verified. Both sides deny targeting civilians.
Vorobyov said more information would follow.
