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More than 620 Ukrainian drones targeted Moscow and its surrounding region overnight into Tuesday, August 18, in what Russia's state news agency TASS described as the largest drone attack on the capital in the past two years, Al Jazeera reported.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said air defenses shot down 180 drones over the capital region between Monday evening and 5 a.m. on Tuesday, with 17 more downed later on approach to the city. Moscow region Governor Andrey Vorobyov said three people were wounded, including a 10-year-old girl. A house burned down in the Pavlovsky Posad district, and several homes and a guesthouse were damaged in Bogorodsky district.
Debris also struck a warehouse east of Moscow belonging to e-commerce company Wildberries, which reported minor damage to the building. Ukraine has hit several Wildberries warehouses in recent weeks and says the company supplies components used in Russian drones.
Russia kept up its own strikes through the same night. Ukraine's air force said it shot down or suppressed 111 of 147 Russian drones. Five people, including a nine-year-old boy, were injured in Izyum in the Kharkiv region, Governor Oleh Syniehubov said. Drones sparked fires and damaged an office building and warehouses in Brovary, near Kyiv. Later on Tuesday morning, a Russian rocket strike hit Pechenihy, a Kharkiv-region village about 40 kilometers from the Russian border, killing at least 10 people and wounding eight, Euronews reported, citing preliminary figures from the regional governor.
The exchange fits a steep escalation in long-range attacks by both sides. Ukraine fired a salvo of more than 800 long-range drones at Russia on Sunday. Ukraine's state energy company Naftogaz said Monday its facilities had been hit 13 times in the past week, bringing attacks on the company to almost 300 this year. The United Nations counted 437 civilians killed in Ukraine in July, the highest monthly toll since May 2022. Russian authorities reported 79 civilians killed in Ukrainian attacks over the same month.
The reach of Ukrainian drones is now shaping events inside the Russian capital. Organizers canceled a military music festival scheduled to open on Red Square on Friday, and Russia's defense ministry said no military hardware would appear at the annual parade, citing the threat of long-range drone attacks.
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