Ukraine launches around 600 drones at Russia, Zelensky claims ‘justified’ attack
Ukraine launches around 600 drones at Russia, Zelensky claims ‘justified’ attack
FRANCE 24Sun, May 17, 2026 at 6:01 AM UTC
0
A soldier of Ukraine's 127th Separate Territorial Brigade launches a drone on the front line in the Kharkiv region on March 14, 2026. (© Nikoletta Stoyanova, AP)
A huge wave of around 600 Ukrainian drones attacked Russia overnight, killing four people, authorities said on Sunday.
Air defences shot down drones in more than a dozen regions, including Moscow, Russia's defence ministry said, in one of the largest Ukrainian barrages of the ongoing conflict so far.
These interceptions – far above the few dozen more often reported – took place across 14 Russian regions, as well as the Crimean peninsula annexed from Ukraine and the Black and Azov seas, the ministry added, with the region around the capital among the worst-hit.
A woman was killed after a drone hit her home in Khimki, a city just northwest of Moscow, and two men died in the village of Pogorelki 10 km (6 miles) north of the capital, according to local Gov. Andrei Vorobyev. In social media updates, Vorobyev said Ukrainian drones had also damaged unspecified “infrastructure” and several high-rises.
In Moscow itself, at least 12 people were wounded in the overnight strikes, mostly near the entrance to the city’s oil refinery, mayor Sergei Sobyanin reported. Sobyanin reported the “technology” of the refinery has not been damaged.
Russian defences shot down 81 drones headed for Moscow overnight, state agency Tass reported, citing Sobyanin, marking one of the largest attacks on the Russian capital since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.
One man was also killed as a drone struck a lorry in the Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, according to local authorities.
Russia’s largest airport – Moscow’s Sheremetyevo – said drone debris had fallen on its premises without causing damage.
Russia attacked Ukraine with 287 drones overnight on Sunday, 279 of which were shot down or jammed, the Ukrainian air force reported.
According to Ukraine's estate emergency service, the strikes injured 8 people in Ukraine's central Dnipropetrovsk region: three in the regional capital of Dnipro, four in Kryvyi Rih, and one in the district of Synelkove.
Residential buildings were damaged in all three locations, the service said.
Attacks 'entirely justified'
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Sunday said the attack was a "justified" response to Russia's prolongation of the war.
"Our responses to Russia's prolongation of the war and its attacks on our cities and communities are entirely justified," Zelensky said on X.
Advertisement
"The distance from Ukraine’s state border is over 500 km. The concentration of Russian air defence in the Moscow region is the highest. But we are overcoming it," he said. "...We are clearly telling the Russians: their state must end its war."
Zelensky had vowed on Friday to launch more retaliatory strikes, a day after a Russian attack on Kyiv killed 24 people.
Within Russia's capital, local authorities reported that air defence systems had intercepted more than 80 drones overnight, wounding 12 people.
"Minor damage has been recorded at the sites where debris fell," Mayor Sergei Sobyanin posted on Telegram.
One of the strikes wounded construction workers at a job site near an oil and gas refinery, Sobyanin said.
"Refinery production has not been disrupted. Three residential buildings were damaged," he added.
While the capital region is often subjected to drone attacks, the city of Moscow, around 400 kilometres (250 miles) from the Ukrainian border, is less frequently targeted.
'Entirely justified'
Diplomatic efforts to end the conflict have been at a standstill, with Kyiv unwilling to accept Moscow's maximalist demands for territory in the eastern Donbas region.
While the United States has pushed for both sides to come to the negotiating table, the talks have noticeably stalled since Washington's attention turned to the US-Israeli war on Iran in late February.
After the expiration of a three-day truce on Tuesday to mark the anniversary of victory over Nazi Germany in World War II – which both sides accused the other of violating – Moscow and Kyiv have returned to trading attacks.
In response to daily bombardments by the Russian military for more than four years, Ukraine has regularly struck within Russia.
In the wake of Moscow's latest attacks on the Ukrainian capital, Zelensky insisted that Kyiv's strategy of targeting military and energy sites within Russia, so as to strike at Moscow's ability to finance the war effort, was "entirely justified".
Kyiv's allies have accused Russia of mocking diplomatic efforts to end the conflict.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP and AP)
Source: “AOL Breaking”
