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Mass drone attack on Moscow as Russian strikes kill three in Ukraine / Photo: © AFP
Mass drone attack on Moscow as Russian strikes kill three in Ukraine
Hundreds of drones targeted Moscow on Sunday as Russia launched missile strikes that killed three people and wounded more than a dozen in Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities, officials on the two sides said.
Amid the intense hostilities, three people were also killed in the Russian city of Rostov, while a Spanish NATO fighter jet shot down a drone that crossed into Romanian territory -- the second time in two days that the war has spilled over into eastern Europe.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin reported a sustained overnight drone assault on the capital, issuing a string of updates over several hours.
Air defences intercepted more than 600 drones headed towards Moscow, with around 200 which were shot down in the region, according to his statements on the state-backed MAX platform.
Moscow regional governor Andrey Vorobyov described the assault as "one of the most massive drone attacks in recent memory", adding that six people were wounded in the region.
"In Podolsk, a UAV hit caused a fire at a Wildberries warehouse in the Koledino Industrial Park," Vorobyov added.
Ukraine has increasingly targeted warehouses linked to the Wildberries online retailer, arguing its strikes are a response to Moscow's bombardment of Ukrainian towns and infrastructure.
- Kyiv explosions -
Since mid-July, Ukraine has struck around 20 Wildberries warehouses and buildings.
Russia's missile strikes killed two people in Ukraine's Zaporizhzhia region with another fatality in Kryvyi Rig, President Volodymyr Zelensky's hometown. More than 20 people were wounded across Kyiv, Brovary, Kryvyi Rig, Odesa, and Dnipetrovsk.
Russian forces hit two industrial sites in Kryvyi Rig, local defence council head Oleksandr Vilkul said on Telegram.
In Kyiv, authorities issued an air raid alert just before 2:00 am (2300 GMT) and several explosions were heard shortly after.
Mayor Vitali Klitschko said Kyiv was "under ballistic missile attack" and urged residents to remain in shelters.
The strikes sparked fires in the Obolonsky and Holosiivskyi districts of the capital.
Kremenchuk in the central Poltava region also came under attack, local officials said, without providing details of damage or casualties.
Russia has maintained near-daily missile and drone strikes across Ukraine since launching its full-scale invasion in early 2022. Zelensky has said Ukraine's increasing attacks deep inside Russia, on refineries as well as the warehouses, aim to undermine Russia's war economy.
Romania's defence ministry said that a Spanish F-18 fighter jet shot down a drone that breached its airspace near the border with Ukraine and Moldova. Debris fell in an unpopulated area of the Galati region, near the Ukrainian border, it added, though it was not known where the drone came from.
Countries bordering the conflict have faced increasing spillovers from the drone war between Ukraine and Russia. NATO said Friday its fighter jets shot down a drone that entered Latvian airspace. It was the second time in a week that a drone had been shot down in Latvian airspace, the country's defence ministry said.
In July, Romania expelled a Russian embassy employee in what it called "a firm response" to drones repeatedly breaching the country's airspace.
Romania shot down three drones on three consecutive days before the expulsion.
L.M. Cardoso--JDB
