Russian officials said on Sunday that about 600 Ukrainian drones targeted various locations in Russia overnight, killing three people in the Moscow region and one in the Belgorod region.
The attacks come after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky vowed to launch retaliatory strikes on Friday, a day after a Russian attack on Kiev killed 24 people and wounded about 50 others.
What did Russia say on the Ukrainian attack?
A drone strike killed a woman in her home in Khimki, northwest of Moscow, while two people were killed in the village of Pogoreliki, 10 km (6 miles) north of the Russian capital, according to local governor Andrei Vorobyev.
Moscow city Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said at least 12 people were injured in the attacks there, most of them construction workers at a site near an oil and gas refinery.
However, he said production at the refinery has not been disrupted.
Local officials in the Belgorod region, bordering Ukraine, said one person there was also killed when the drone collided with a truck.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said air defense forces shot down 556 drones across the country overnight, while another 30 drones were intercepted after dawn.
Russian state news agency TASS said 81 of those drones were headed toward Moscow overnight, making it one of the largest attacks on the Russian capital since Moscow launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
Attacks on Russia ‘justified’ – Zelensky
Russia, which has repeatedly attacked its neighbor with ground and air strikes since launching a full-scale invasion without provocation, sent 287 drones over Ukraine overnight, shooting down or jamming 279 of them, the Ukrainian Air Force said.
Ukrainian officials said the attacks wounded eight people in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region, three in the regional capital Dnipro, four in the city of Kryvyi Rih and one in the Sinelkov district.
President Volodymyr Zelensky described Ukraine’s attacks on Russia, and especially its capital region, as “completely justified” given continued Russian aggression.
“Our reactions to Russia’s prolongation of the war and its attacks on our cities and communities are entirely appropriate,” he said on X.
“The distance to the state border of Ukraine is more than 500 km. The concentration of Russian air defense in the Moscow region is the highest. But we are overcoming this,” he said.
“We are telling the Russians clearly: Their state must end its war,” he said.
Diplomacy stalled in Ukraine conflict
The attacks come as diplomatic efforts to end the conflict have stalled.
Among other things, Kiev continues to reject the maximalist demands made by Moscow for territory in the eastern Donbass region, saying that meeting them would be a quasi-reward for Russia’s illegitimate military actions.
US efforts to bring the two sides to the negotiating table in the past months have also apparently stalled as Washington focuses on the war against Iran.
Edited by: Dmytro Lyubenko