Moscow region burns after huge drone attack in 'terrible night for Russia'

Waves of drones battered Russia overnight, in what has been described as a “terrible night” for the country. Fire erupted at an oil depot in Noginsk after it was hit by falling drone debris, according to the governor of the Moscow region, Andrei Vorobyov.

Two people, he added, were injured in the incident, and a nearby maternity hospital was evacuated. Mr Vorobyov didn’t reveal the extent of the damage at the oil depot. Elsewhere in the Moscow region, drones hit a warehouse owned by Wildberries, Russia’s largest online retailer, in Elektrostal, a city located east of the Russian capital.

The governor claimed 24 people were injured in the attack.

Another warehouse owned by the retailer was hit in Kotovsk, part of the Tambov region, located nearly 300 miles southeast of Moscow. It reportedly resulted in 25 people being injured and seven losing their lives, the local governor said.

Wildberries ​co-founder and CEO, ​Tatyana Kim, ⁠said it had been a “terrible night” for Russia and for the company.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky seemingly claimed the drone attack on X. He wrote: “Today, our long-range sanctions worked across three areas on Russian territory, as well as on our temporarily occupied land and at sea.

“In particular, in response to Russian strikes on our civilian infrastructure and on our cities and communities, two major logistics facilities were hit – in the Moscow and Tambov regions, more than 500 and nearly 700 kilometers from the front line.”

An oil facility, he added, “was also struck”. He also said: “In addition, Ukrainian mid-range strikes engaged targets in the waters of the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea, and in our temporarily occupied Crimea.”