More than 650 Ukrainian drones targeted Moscow and the surrounding region overnight between October 5 and 6, 2026, in one of the largest drone attacks on the Russian capital's region since the war began, according to Russian officials. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said most of the drones were destroyed at a distance, with 105 downed as they approached the city. Moscow region Governor Andrei Vorobyov said two people were killed and nine injured. The Volodarsk Linear Production and Dispatch Center — described as the largest oil depot in the Moscow region — was reported as one of the apparent targets.
What happened?
The attack began on the evening of October 5 and continued into the morning of October 6, Russian officials said. Sobyanin said "more than 650 Ukrainian drones were launched in a wave headed towards Moscow overnight," adding that air defenses destroyed the majority at a distance and downed 105 as they approached the capital, per Reuters. The Sun, citing Russian officials, put the figure higher at 679 drones over an eight-and-a-half-hour assault; these claims have not been independently verified.
Governor Vorobyov said 185 drones were intercepted over the Moscow region, with more than 10 private homes damaged in Istra, the village of Lobanovo, and the settlement of Radumlya. The two dead included a 71-year-old man pulled from the rubble of a house and a 20-year-old man found in a nearby village, Vorobyov said, per Reuters. Early casualty figures were still being revised in Tuesday-morning reporting: an earlier Kyiv Post account cited the same governor saying one person was killed and six injured. All casualty figures come from Russian officials; none has been independently verified.
A warehouse operated by the Russian e-commerce company Wildberries was set ablaze in the Moscow region, local authorities said, as cited by TASS. The head of the city of Domodedovo, south of Moscow and home to one of the capital's main airports, said work was under way to restore electricity to villages hit by the drones.
What was hit?
One of the apparent targets was the Volodarskaya Linear Production and Dispatch Center near the village of Konstantinovo, around 40 kilometers from downtown Moscow, the Kyiv Independent reported, citing monitoring channels. Eyewitness footage from Konstantinovo appeared to show flames erupting from the facility as smoke billowed, but the Kyiv Independent said it could not immediately verify the reports. The depot is operated by Transnefteprodukt, part of Russia's state-owned Transneft oil pipeline company, and handles up to 3 million metric tons of petroleum products a year — including gasoline, aviation fuel, and diesel — supplying fuel to Moscow's three major airports: Vnukovo, Domodedovo, and Sheremetyevo, per the Kyiv Post.
The strike continues a weeks-long campaign against Russian oil infrastructure. On October 2, Ukrainian forces struck the Samara LPDS in Samara Oblast — Russia's largest oil hub — according to Russian media reports, with a fire breaking out at the facility afterward. Ukraine's Defense Ministry said on October 4 that more than 51 percent of Russia's oil refining capacity had been disabled by Ukrainian attacks, a figure that has not been independently verified.
Why does it matter?
The scale of the attack marks a sharp escalation of Ukraine's deep-strike campaign against Russian energy infrastructure — and it comes the morning after Kyiv's latest mass strike wave, with the Kremlin pursuing its own winter campaign against Ukrainian cities. Hours before the Moscow attack, a separate Russian strike on an apartment building in Zaporizhzhia injured three people, and Russia targeted Kyiv with drone debris falling on a residential district late on October 5, according to the Kyiv Independent.
Airports in the Moscow region were disrupted during the attack, with hundreds of flights delayed or cancelled while the drones were in the air, according to Russian officials cited by The Sun. The exchange is unfolding against fragile diplomacy: the United States has proposed trilateral talks with Ukraine and Russia by the end of October, while both sides continue to strike energy and urban targets nightly.
---
Attribution notes: the strike is attributed to Ukraine by Russian officials (Sobyanin, Vorobyov); Kyiv had not commented on this specific attack in the sources opened during this run. Drone counts, casualty figures, and damage claims come solely from Russian officials and have not been independently verified. The reported fire at the Volodarsk facility rests on unverified eyewitness footage.
