Ukraine launched its biggest drone attack on Moscow since the start of the Russian invasion in 2022, Russian media said, while the Kremlin retaliated by launching a record number of drones.
Three airports in the Russian capital were temporarily closed, and flights were diverted. At least one person was injured. Russia said its air defenses shot down 70 drones, nearly half of them over Moscow, while the rest were shot down in western Russia.
The General Staff of the Ukrainian Army announced that it had successfully targeted an ammunition depot near the Russian city of Bryansk. The video shows multiple explosions from a warehouse at a military site. Flares of fire were visible in the night sky, the Guardian reports.
Other footage from Russian Telegram channels shows drones flying over urban areas, including high-rise suburbs and a truck parking lot. Ukrainian commentators said the attack on Moscow was in response to a massive Russian drone strike targeting Kiev on Thursday, shortly after Donald Trump was elected US president.
On Saturday and Sunday, Moscow sent a new wave of 145 drones, the largest to date. There was damage in the Black Sea port of Odessa. Ukrainian officials said 62 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) were shot down, while others were lost en route.
Russia's Ministry of Defense said it prevented a "terrorist attack" on its territory using "aircraft-type drones". At least 36 planes were diverted, the national air transport agency said.
Both sides have developed innovative and increasingly sophisticated UAV programs. Ukraine has established its own drone command and improved the range of its systems, with strikes reaching hundreds of kilometers deep into Russia. Weapons depots, oil processing facilities and enemy airstrips near the Arctic Circle, as well as naval vessels in the Caspian Sea, were targeted.
Russia has begun using drones controlled by fiber-optic cables in the Kursk region, where Ukrainian troops control the salient around the Russian city of Suzh, the Guardian reports. These new drones cannot be jammed by regular electronic countermeasures.
Trump's victory in the US presidential election has fueled speculation that Russia's 10-year war against its smaller neighbor may be coming to an end. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky spoke with Trump last week and also spoke with Elon Musk after Trump handed over the phone to the billionaire.
The newly elected president boasted that he could solve the war in Ukraine "in 24 hours". Vladimir Putin has said he is ready to listen to what Trump has to say, with the condition that the US stops military aid to Ukraine before bilateral relations can be improved.
Zelensky is ready to fly to the US this week and hold substantive talks with Trump, sources in Kyiv said. Their last phone conversation was "very positive", they added. The two met last month when Zelenski traveled to New York for a session of the UN General Assembly.
Trump associates have previously sketched the framework of a pro-Russian "peace plan." The plan would include freezing the current front lines, which would mean the de facto loss of Crimea and most of the east of the country to Ukraine, with a veto or long-term pause on Kiev's application for NATO membership. What Trump will actually propose in office remains unclear.
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Musk's views on Ukraine are characterized by great contradictions. It provided Ukraine with Starlink satellite internet, which is widely used at the front and is a key tool for the Ukrainian military. Zelensky thanked Musk for Starlink during their conversation. At the same time, Musk echoed the Kremlin's views, calling for Crimea to be part of Russia and for Ukraine to remain neutral. He has been secretly talking to Putin, the Wall Street Journal recently reported.
There were no signs of panic on Moscow's boulevards after the drone attack, agencies reported. Muscovites walked their dogs, and church bells of the Russian Orthodox Church echoed across the capital.
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