At least seven people have been killed in Russia after what officials called the “largest-scale” attack launched by Ukraine this year.
Some 822 drones were used – 600 aiming for Moscow, according to its regional governor who said the Russian capital had suffered “one of the most massive drone attacks in recent memory”. A warehouse belonging to Russian online retailer Wildberries was hit.
Russian attacks on Ukraine also killed at least seven people and injured more than 39.
Russia has intensified missile attacks across Ukraine in recent weeks, with Kyiv also stepping up drone strikes deep inside Russia.
Officials in Belgorod, which borders Ukraine, said a woman was killed after a civilian bus was struck, while an 83-year-old man died in a drone attack in the Moscow region, according to Governor Andrey Vorobyov.
A Wildberries warehouse in Koledino, 25km (15.5 miles) from the centre of Moscow, was hit in an attack, injuring three, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said. Videos shows a fire and a large plume of smoke over the warehouse.
Wildberries, known as Russia’s version of Amazon, has been repeatedly targeted since July. Kyiv said at the time it was targeting logistics hubs used by Russians to buy military equipment and disrupting supplies to the Russian army.
Ukraine’s defence ministry said the latest attack meant that seven out of 10 of the largest Wildberries logistics centres had been “disabled”.
Both warring sides accuse each other of targeting civilians.
ReutersIn Ukraine, a 66-year-old man and 64-year-old woman died after a private house was hit by a guided aerial bomb in the Zaporizhzhia region, officials said.
Two more people were killed in Kryvyi Rih, a city in Dnipropetrovsk.
Officials in Sumy, Donetsk and Kherson also reported one death in each region, including a 51-year-old killed in a drone strike in Sumy.
In Kyiv, air-raid sirens sounded four times overnight as the Ukrainian capital came under Russian attack. At least six people, including a child, were reportedly injured, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
Russia said its attacks on Kyiv on Saturday night targeted a FirePoint facility producing parts for Ukrainian Flamingo missiles and a factory making components for drones.
A book market in the city’s Pochayna district was damaged in the strikes. Burnt books could be seen lying on the ground, while firefighters continue to douse the flames.
Sixty-nine-year-old Valentina’s husband owned a market stall.
Looking through the rubble, she told the BBC: “All these books in the street were from my husband’s stall in the market – I recognise them on the floor.”
She added: “You never think that it will happen to you.”
Vinyl store owner Luba, 42, said she has lost 500,000 hryvnias (£8,262) worth of stock.
“This business was my baby – many of the vinyls destroyed were rare and irreplaceable,” she told the BBC. “I want Russia to disappear from this Earth.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said 13 regions had come under attack this week, with Russia launching more than 1,550 attack drones, nearly 1,560 guided aerial bombs and 62 missiles.
“Wherever the Russians can reach with their ballistic missiles, they strike civilian infrastructure,” he said.
For years, Ukraine has relied on US supplies of Patriot interceptor missiles to shoot down Russian ballistic missiles.
But the US has used many of its stockpiles during its war with Iran and is reluctant to give up more.
After initially offering Ukraine the licence to make Patriots in early July, President Donald Trump later denied the US had agreed to “give away that kind of technology”.
Throughout the war, as well as relying on Western partners, Ukraine has had to innovate – its home-made drones are responsible for the attacks deep into Russian territory.
And it will be able to strike Russia with domestically-made ballistic missiles within three to six months, the former Ukrainian Defence Minister Mykhailo Fedorov told CBS News, the BBC’s US partner.
Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, and currently controls approximately a fifth of Ukrainian territory.
With marginal gains being made by either side in an attritional ground battle along a lengthy front line, the war has predominantly become an aerial one, with exchanges of missiles and drones aimed at degrading each country’s warfighting ability.
