Ukraine launches one of its largest aerial attacks of its war with Russia

Ukraine launched one of its largest aerial attacks of its war with Russia, sending hundreds of drones in a strike that killed at least six people.

Kyiv has stepped up its attacks on Russia this year, with long-range missiles and swarms of drones targeting military industries and energy facilities.

It has also increasingly pummeled giant Wildberries depots , burning billions of dollars’ worth of merchandise belonging to the Russian online retail giant. Those attacks have brought the war home to the Russian public nearly 4½ years into Moscow’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Meanwhile, Ukraine also came under Russian attack , with drone strikes destroying homes and torching Kyiv’s landmark book market.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence said it had destroyed 822 Ukrainian drones on Saturday night and early Sunday morning (local time). At least 600 drones were detected headed toward the Russian capital, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said, with one-third of those destroyed over the Moscow region itself.

An 83-year-old man was killed after a Ukrainian drone hit a private home in the Moscow region, Governor Andrey Vorobyov said. He also confirmed a Ukrainian attack had sparked a blaze at a Wildberries warehouse in the town of Podolsk.

A drone attack targeted three towns in Russia’s south-western Rostov region, killing five people, Governor Yury Slyusar said. The attack by more than 150 drones damaged several homes and a train station and sparked a forest fire.

A Russian missile attack on the Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih killed two people and wounded 14 others, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on social media on Sunday. He also said that one more person had been killed in the city of Sumy.

ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine’s largest steel producer, confirmed that one of its sites was hit in a missile attack and that operations were partially suspended.

Elsewhere, a man and a woman died when their home was hit by a Russian strike in Ukraine’s southern city of Zaporizhzhia, said Ivan Fedorov, the head of the local military administration.

Russian attacks also sparked fires throughout the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, which wounded six people.

A blaze took hold at one of the city’s largest book markets, tearing through kiosks huddled close to the Pochaina metro station.

Firefighters fought back the flames, which sent plumes of black smoke across the capital, and picked their way through rubble where the market’s crowded pavilions once stood.

“Wherever the Russians can reach with their ballistic missiles, they strike civilian infrastructure,” Zelensky said.