Cross border strikes kill at least fourteen as Ukraine launches largest attack on Russia this year

At least seven people died in Russia following what officials described as Ukraine’s largest scale attack of the year, while separate Russian strikes on Ukraine killed at least seven more people and injured over 39 others.

Ukraine launched roughly 822 drones in the assault, with 600 of them targeting Moscow, according to the region’s governor, who called it one of the most massive drone attacks the Russian capital has faced in recent memory. The strikes hit a warehouse belonging to online retailer Wildberries among other targets.

In Russia’s southwestern Rostov region, five people died following overnight strikes, the regional governor said. In Belgorod, which borders Ukraine, officials said a woman died after a civilian bus was hit, while Moscow region governor Andrey Vorobyov reported that an 83 year old man died in a separate drone attack. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said a Wildberries warehouse in Koledino, about 25 kilometers, or 15.5 miles, from central Moscow, was struck and left three people injured, with video footage showing fire and heavy smoke rising above the facility. Wildberries, often compared to Amazon, has faced repeated attacks since July, when Kyiv said it was deliberately targeting logistics hubs Russians use to acquire military equipment as part of a broader effort to disrupt supply lines feeding the Russian army.

In Ukraine, officials said a 66 year old man and a 64 year old woman died after a guided aerial bomb struck a private home in the Zaporizhzhia region. Two additional deaths were reported in Kryvyi Rih, a city in the Dnipropetrovsk region, while officials in Sumy, Donetsk and Kherson each reported one fatality, including a 51 year old killed in a drone strike in Sumy.

Air raid sirens sounded four times overnight in Kyiv as Russian forces struck the capital. Mayor Vitali Klitschko said at least six people, including a child, were injured in the attacks. Russian officials said their strikes on Kyiv Saturday night targeted a FirePoint facility that produces components for Ukraine’s Flamingo missiles, along with a factory manufacturing drone parts. The strikes also damaged a book market in the city’s Pochayna district, leaving charred books scattered across the ground as firefighters worked to extinguish the remaining flames.

Valentina, 69, whose husband ran a stall at the market, described searching through the debris and recognizing books that had belonged to his stall lying scattered on the ground. She said she never imagined something like this would happen to her family. Luba, 42, who owns a vinyl record store nearby, said she lost stock worth roughly 500,000 hryvnias, or about £8,262, in the strikes. She called the shop her life’s work and said many of the destroyed records were rare and could not be replaced.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said 13 regions across the country came under attack this week, with Russia launching more than 1,550 attack drones, nearly 1,560 guided aerial bombs and 62 missiles during that period. He said Russian forces strike civilian infrastructure wherever their ballistic missiles can reach.

Russia launched its full scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022 and currently controls roughly a fifth of Ukrainian territory. With neither side making significant progress along the lengthy front line in recent months, the war has increasingly shifted toward an aerial contest, with both countries trading missile and drone strikes aimed at degrading the other’s capacity to keep fighting.