Ukraine targets Moscow, western Russian regions with hundreds of drones
July 7 (UPI) --Ukraine attacked the Moscow region with more than 430 drones overnight, its largest assault on the capital and surrounding areas in two years, Russian authorities said.
Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin told the state-run TASS news agency that there were 430 incoming unmanned aerial vehicles between late Monday night and 6 a.m. local time Tuesday.
Sobyanin said that air defenses downed most of the drones "at distant approaches," but 36 got close to Moscow before being destroyed.
The assault came after the mayor reported more than 200 drones heading toward the Moscow region on Saturday. Most of those were also downed at some distance from the capital by air defenses.
The attack was part of a major airborne offensive by Kyiv involving more than 450 drones targeting 15 Russian regions, as well as occupied Kherson province, Crimea, the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea, that killed at least one person and injured five.
Alexander Khinshtein, Governor of Kursk region which borders Ukraine, said a 33-year-old man and a 34-year-old woman sustained multiple shrapnel wounds after a drone hit the town of Yubileyny, northwest of the capital, Kursk.
An industrial facility in Dzerzhinsky district in the Kaluga region, 120 miles southwest of Moscow, was set ablaze and homes and vehicles in the southwestern Voronezh region were damaged by debris from downed drones.
Separately, Ukrainian media reported Belgorod Airport and a natural gas pipeline operations facility were set on fire after a "massive" missile attack on the province in which at least one person was killed and three were injured.
The general staff of Ukraine's military said it struck a key Russian contractor in Seltso in Bryansk province that manufactures microelectronics and microchips, power semiconductor devices and electronic components for the Russian military, for the second time in four months.
The general staff also claimed hits on the Bryansk Chemical Plant which it said made component gunpowder, explosives and rocket propellant components for Russian munitions, two strategically significant railway bridges in occupied Crimea and military depots in occupied Donetsk province.
Russia carried out a third night of aerial attacks against Ukraine since Thursday, with the Ukraine Air Force saying in a post on Telegram that 123 "Shahed strike UAVs" from multiple directions targeted north, south, center and east of the country.
Ukrainian air defenses downed 108 of the drones but 12 got through, hitting 10 locations with falling drone debris causing damage in a further five locations.
No casualties were reported, although the death toll from strikes on Kyiv and surrounding areas overnight Sunday and into Monday rose to at least 26, on top of 30 killed in a massive missile and drone assault targeting the capital on Friday.
Previously, Ukraine's largest attack on the Moscow region was on June 18 when a record 190 drones were destroyed as they bore down on the Russian capital.
Air defenses downed at least 475 Ukrainian drones in seven other airborne attacks targeting the capital in the three months between March 11 and June 17, according to Moscow Mayor Sobyanin.
Copyright 2026 UPI News Corporation. All Rights Reserved.
This story was originally published July 7, 2026 at 7:07 AM.