Ukraine launches hundreds of drones into Russia in one of the largest aerial attacks of the war

Ukraine launched hundreds of drones across Russia Sunday, killing at least six people in one of Kyiv’s largest aerial attacks of the war.

Russia’s Ministry of Defense said that it had destroyed 822 Ukrainian drones overnight. Some 600 drones were detected headed toward the Russian capital, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said, with a third destroyed over the Moscow region itself.

An 83-year-old man was killed after a Ukrainian drone hit a private home in the Moscow region, local Gov. Andrey Vorobyov said. He also confirmed that a Ukrainian attack had sparked a blaze at a warehouse belonging to Russian retail giant Wildberries in the town of Podolsk, where images shared by Russian media outlets showed columns of black smoke.

A drone attack targeted three towns in Russia’s southwestern Rostov region, killing five people, local Gov. Yury Slyusar said. The attack, with more than 150 drones, damaged several homes and a railway station and sparked a forest fire.

Ukraine has stepped up its attacks on Russia this year, with long-range missiles and swarms of drones increasingly targeting military industries and energy facilities. It has also increasingly pummeled giant Wildberries depots, burning billions of dollars’ worth of merchandise and bringing the war home to the Russian public nearly 4½ years into Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

A Russian missile attack on Ukraine’s Kryvyi Rih killed two people and wounded 14 others, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy wrote on social media Sunday. He also said that one more person had been killed in the city of Sumy.

Meanwhile, a Russian attack on Kyiv sparked fires throughout the Ukrainian capital and injured six people.

“Wherever the Russians can reach with their ballistic missiles, they strike civilian infrastructure,” Zelenskyy said. “Since this morning, air raid alerts have continued in many regions – the Russians launched another wave of drones.”