Massive raid on Moscow. Over 600 Ukrainian drones

Sobyanin stated that the attack lasted from 20:30 on Wednesday to 07:00 on Thursday. According to the data presented by the mayor, 231 unmanned aerial vehicles were destroyed directly on the approaches to Moscow, while the rest were allegedly neutralised further from the capital. Information was published in successive bulletins and then summarised in the morning. The figure provided refers to drones that, according to Russian authorities, were flying towards the Moscow region; it does not mean that all of them reached the vicinity of the city itself.

The attack disrupted air transport operations. During the night, operations at Moscow’s Domodedovo, Vnukovo, and Zhukovsky airports were temporarily restricted. According to the Russian Interfax agency, the restrictions were lifted around 06:45 Moscow time. The flight disruptions were a direct consequence of measures taken in response to the threat from unmanned aerial vehicles.

While the scale of the attack presented by Sobyanin is significant, the figures provided by the Russian authorities have not been independently verified. Reuters, reporting on the mayor’s statement, noted that Russian air defence reportedly shot down most of the 613 drones. Available reports have not provided a full assessment of losses or independent confirmation of the number of machines used in the attack. For this reason, the data should be treated as official declarations from the Russian side rather than a confirmed operational tally. A previous massive drone attack on the Russian capital took place in July of this year.

The attack on the Moscow region is part of a series of Ukrainian long-range strikes using unmanned aerial vehicles targeting objectives within Russian territory. According to earlier reports, also cited by the media based on Russian government announcements, air defence reportedly intercepted over 1,600 drones during one of the large-scale attacks in September, although these were dispersed over a larger area. These data also originate from Russian sources and have not been verified by external observers.

That same night, Russia carried out an attack on Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city. Mayor Ihor Terekhov reported damage to an educational facility. The juxtaposition of both events shows that drone operations remain a significant element of the war, encompassing both strikes on the Russian rear and Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities.