Ukrainian forces launched more than 400 drones at the Moscow region in a single night, Russian officials said on Monday, marking the largest such swarm directed at the capital since the full-scale invasion began. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin stated that air defences intercepted most of the unmanned aircraft, with 85 destroyed near the city. The attack wounded at least 10 people and ignited fires at residential buildings, an oil depot, and industrial sites in the Podolsk, Domodedovo and Odintsovo districts, according to regional governor Andrei Vorobyov. The strike followed a weekend barrage that killed seven workers at two Wildberries logistics warehouses in the Tambov and Moscow regions, which Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy described as facilities used to equip Russian soldiers and manufacture drones.

Viewed from Kyiv, the escalation is a direct response to what Ukrainian officials characterise as relentless Russian strikes on civilian infrastructure. Zelenskyy, in public statements, linked the warehouse attacks to earlier Russian missile and drone barrages that hit a Nova Post sorting centre and residential areas. The Ukrainian Air Force reported that Russia fired 41 missiles and 125 drones at Ukraine overnight on Sunday, killing at least six people in Kyiv and Zaporizhzhia and striking a Guinea-Bissau-flagged grain vessel near Odesa, where the port authority said 10 people died. The Russian defence ministry confirmed it had targeted fuel tanks in Odesa and claimed to have destroyed Ukrainian logistics centres, framing the operations as strikes on military-linked infrastructure.

In Moscow, authorities condemned the drone wave as a terrorist act aimed at civilians. Tambov governor Yevgeny Pervyshov said the Saturday attack on a Wildberries warehouse was a “planned terrorist attack” designed to maximise casualties, noting that the drones carried shrapnel. The Russian defence ministry reported intercepting 381 Ukrainian drones across the country and annexed Crimea. The attacks have exposed vulnerabilities in Russia’s rear areas, with the independent outlet Astra reporting that the Wildberries facility in Elektrostal, one of the largest e-commerce hubs in the country, was not protected by air defences. Wildberries, a platform used by tens of thousands of sellers, evacuated its Podolsk centre as a precaution before resuming operations.

Analysts in Washington note that Ukraine’s expanding long-range drone campaign is reshaping the conflict’s geography, forcing Moscow to defend assets far from the front line. The Institute for the Study of War assessed that Russia has launched more ballistic missiles at Ukraine in July than it reportedly produces each month, suggesting it is drawing on stockpiles to sustain a higher operational tempo. The strikes on Wildberries, a company with an estimated value of €11 billion, also carry economic and psychological weight, as they disrupt a supply chain that, according to Ukrainian officials, feeds the Russian war effort. Meanwhile, Zelenskyy faces domestic political pressure after a government reshuffle that saw the departure of the young defence minister Mykhailo Fedorov, sparking street protests in Kyiv against the retention of the Soviet-trained armed forces chief. The cycle of long-range strikes shows no sign of abating, with both sides signalling further operations and no diplomatic track publicly active.