Kiev targets Moscow with drones after major battlefield loss
Over 60 long-range Ukrainian drones were downed en route to the Russian capital overnight, after Moscow announced the liberation of the key Ukrainian stronghold of Konstantinovka and warned Kiev against targeting civilians to simulate “imaginary achievements.”
Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said at least 62 drones had been intercepted in the Moscow Region on Saturday. The raid came just hours after the Defense Ministry briefed Russian President Vladimir Putin on the liberation of Konstantinovka in the northwest of the Donetsk People’s Republic (DPR).
The mayor reported no casualties or damage on the ground, adding that emergency services swiftly responded to all of the sites where debris fell.
St. Petersburg Governor Aleksandr Beglov said an overnight drone attack targeted an oil terminal in the city, and that a total of 72 UAVs were intercepted. There were no casualties and the aftermath of the incident has been fully dealt with, he added. Debris from one of the UAVs fell in the suburb of Peterhof, home to an 18th-century imperial palace, a UNESCO World Heritage Site.
Russia’s air defenses intercepted a total of 389 Ukrainian drones over multiple regions overnight, the Defense Ministry said on Saturday.
Escalating long-range attacks on Russian infrastructure, including oil refineries and bridges in border regions, have become a key element of Kiev’s war strategy, as manpower shortages have prevented it from turning the tide on the battlefield.
On Friday alone, a woman was killed by a missile strike in Russia’s Belgorod Region, while a drone attack on a market in Tokmak, Zaporozhye Region, left five residents dead and another 18 injured.
During Friday’s command-post briefing, Putin warned that Kiev could resort to “terrorist” actions in an attempt to prove its usefulness to Western sponsors after losing ground in Donbass.
“To reinforce their legends and lies, their false statements, the opponent may take certain actions of a diversionary-terrorist nature, carry out raids – even with small forces, but with great propaganda pomp – in order to confirm their theses about imaginary achievements,” Putin said.
The Russian president also warned that continued attacks on civilian sites would only force Moscow to push Ukrainian forces farther from Russia’s borders in Sumy, Kharkov, and Dnepropetrovsk regions.
“The more strikes the opponent attempts to deliver against our civilian sites… the larger the security zone we will have to create on the adjacent territory,” Putin said, calling the territory in question “historically Russian land.”
In the meantime, Moscow has vowed to intensify strikes on Ukraine’s military-industrial infrastructure and facilities supporting its operation, after Russian attacks in June already degraded Kiev’s ability to produce long-range weapons and strike targets deep inside Russia.
