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A massive Ukrainian drone attack killed at least three people in the Moscow area overnight, Russian authorities said, in what was reported as the largest and most widespread drone attack since the invasion.
In a post on Telegram, Moscow’s regional governor, Andrey Vorobyov, said that a woman had been killed after a strike on a private residence on the outskirts of Moscow and that two others were killed in the village of Pogorelki.
The Russian Ministry of Defence said local air defences intercepted 556 Ukrainian drones across the country from Saturday night into early Sunday morning, with a further 30 shot down later on Sunday.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirms the attack in a post on X, sharing a video showing a large plume of black smoke in the distance and writing that “Ukrainian long-range sanctions reached the Moscow region.”
“Our responses to Russia’s prolongation of the war and its attacks on our cities and communities are entirely justified,” Zelenskyy said.
“The distance from Ukraine’s state border is over 500 km. The concentration of Russian air defence in the Moscow region is the highest. But we are overcoming it,” he added.
It marks one of the largest drone attacks carried out by Ukrainian forces since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of the country in February 2022.
It follows a Russian missile and drone barrage earlier this week that killed at least 24 people in the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv.
In a separate post on social media, Zelenskyy said Russian forces had launched over 3,170 attack drones, more than 1,300 guided aerial bombs, and 74 missiles against Ukraine this week, frequently targeting residential buildings and civilian infrastructure and killing 52 people.
The two countries had this week exchanged 205 prisoners of war each, in what was the first phase of a planned “1,000-for-1,000” swap deal.