Ukraine aims one of its biggest drone blitzes at Moscow

Hanna Arhirova and Barr Hatton | August 18, 2026

Ukrainian forces have staged one of their biggest drone attacks on Russia since Moscow’s invasion more than four years ago, firing almost 800 drones just two days after launching a similar salvo.

Meanwhile, a Russian missile strike on a village in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region killed at least 10 people and wounded 17 others as the barrage demolished homes, officials said on Tuesday.

The warring countries are locked in an escalating duel of long-range aerial strikes. 

Fighting on the roughly 1250km front line in eastern and southern Ukraine is restricted by large numbers of drones and ground robots threatening troop movements, and neither side is making significant battlefield progress, analysts say.

In the past year, Ukraine has devised and deployed domestically produced long-range drones for strikes deep inside Russia. 

Its drone technology has impressed governments and defence manufacturers around the world.

Kyiv officials aim to make the Russian public feel the war’s consequences and pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin into negotiating a peace settlement. 

Putin has so far shown no sign he intends to stop the invasion.

“Putin continues to drag out the war instead of accepting Ukraine’s realistic ceasefire proposals and ending the bloodshed,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said in a post on X.

Russian air defences overnight intercepted 791 Ukrainian drones over a number of Russian regions, as well as annexed Crimea and the Black and the Azov seas, the defence ministry in Moscow said, in what was the second-largest drone attack since January 2025, according to an Associated Press tally.

More than 600 Ukrainian drones flew toward the Moscow region, where 180 were shot down, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said.

Officials reported no deaths or major damage. Ukraine has increasingly launched swarms of hundreds of drones in an attempt to overwhelm Russian air defences.

In the Moscow region that surrounds but does not include the Russian capital, three people were wounded, governor Andrei Vorobyov said.

Three people were also wounded in the Ryazan region adjacent to the Moscow region where three private houses were damaged by the attack, governor Pavel Malkov said. 

The overnight attack started a fire at a warehouse of Wildberries, Russia’s biggest online retailer, in an industrial zone. 

Ukraine has repeatedly targeted the company’s depots, which it says help supply the Russian military.

Wildberries said its facility sustained “insignificant damage”.

A Russian missile strike on the village of Pechenihy in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region killed 10 civilians, according to preliminary information, said Oleh Syniehubov, head of the Kharkiv regional military administration, with another 17 people wounded. 

President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called it “a brutal attack” that damaged 10 homes, a cafe, a post office, a store and at least seven vehicles, according to Syniehubov.

“We will definitely respond to this Russian strike,” Zelenskiy said on social media.

Also, three people were killed and three others were wounded over the past day in Russian attacks on Ukraine’s Sumy region, including drone strikes and an explosive device blast, Ukraine’s National Police said.

The UK defence ministry said it would not budge from its military support for Kyiv, after Russia said that Ukraine’s reported use of British drones for attacks on Russian soil would bring unidentified consequences for London.

“Britain stands shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine, and we are committed to providing the equipment Ukraine needs to defend itself against Putin’s illegal invasion,” a British defence spokesperson said.

British newspaper The Sunday Times reported that two UK companies made drones used by Ukraine to hit Russia.

Following the report, the Russian embassy in the UK said that “London’s actions will inevitably carry consequences”.