An Indian worker was killed and three others were injured in a drone attack in the Moscow region, the Indian embassy in Russia said on Sunday. The attack came as Ukraine launched one of its largest-ever strikes at Moscow, though the source of the drones that hit the Indians was unclear.
“One Indian worker has lost his life and three others have been injured in a drone attack in the Moscow region earlier today. Embassy officials have visited the location and met the injured workers in the hospital,” the embassy said on X.
“The Embassy condoles the loss of life and is working with the company management and local authorities to provide necessary assistance to the workers,” it said. The embassy did not disclose the identities of the deceased or the injured.
The Russian embassy in New Delhi also mourned the death of the Indian worker. In a post on X, the embassy said it “extends its sympathy to those injured by the Ukrainian attack on civilian facilities in the Moscow region.”
“According to preliminary reports, more than 12 people were injured in the city of Moscow, while in the Moscow region three people were killed and another six were injured,” it said.
It was not immediately clear whether the Indian worker was among the three people reported dead by Moscow region officials, or a further fatality.
Ukraine attacks Russia
Ukraine launched more than 1,000 drones at Russia overnight into Sunday in one of its largest attacks since the full-scale invasion began in February 2022. At least four people were killed – including three near Moscow – and more than a dozen were wounded.
A woman was killed after a drone hit her home in Khimki, a city northwest of Moscow, and two men died in Pogorelki village, 10km north of the capital, Moscow region governor Andrei Vorobyev said. Two people were also killed in the Mytishchi area when drone debris fell on a house under construction, Tass reported. One man was killed after a drone struck a truck in the Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine.
Ukrainian drones also damaged “infrastructure” and several high-rise buildings, Vorobyev said on social media.
In Moscow, at least 12 people were wounded, mostly near the entrance to the city’s oil refinery, mayor Sergei Sobyanin said. He said the refinery’s “technology” had not been damaged.
Russia retaliates
Russian defences shot down more than 120 drones headed for Moscow in the past 24 hours, Sobyanin said, according to the state news agency Tass. Russia’s defence ministry said air defences destroyed 556 drones over Russia, the occupied Crimean Peninsula and the Azov and Black seas. Shortly after noon local time, it said more than 1,000 drones had been shot down or jammed in the previous 24 hours.
Moscow’s Sheremetyevo airport — Russia’s largest — said drone debris had fallen on its grounds without causing damage or affecting flights.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed the strikes, saying they were “entirely justified.” He said the drones had flown more than 500km (310 miles) from Ukrainian territory, and that Ukraine was “overcoming” Russian air defence systems concentrated around the capital.
“Our responses to Russia’s prolongation of the war and attacks on our cities and communities are entirely justified. This time, Ukrainian long-distance sanctions have reached the Moscow region, and we are clearly telling the Russians: their state must end its war,” Zelenskyy said.
Nigel Gould Davies, senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS), a London-based think tank, said the attack appeared to be “the retaliation or revenge that president Zelenskyy promised after the fierce attacks that Russia carried out on Kyiv.”
Those strikes came immediately after the end of a brief ceasefire that allowed Russia to hold its annual Victory Day parade on May 9, commemorating the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany during World War II. Russia and Ukraine accused each other of repeatedly violating the pause in hostilities.
“It brings home the fact Ukraine has the capacity to strike at very significant scale at or around the Russian capital,” taking the war home to Russians in a way that would be “most unwelcome” to the Kremlin, Gould Davies told The Associated Press.
“There is no ongoing peace process to disrupt. What [the attack] is more likely to do is add to the darkening cloud of anxiety over Russia which has developed palpably over the last three or four months,” he said.
He cited Russia’s recent battlefield setbacks, a deteriorating economy, and the Kremlin’s intensifying crackdown on the internet, including in Moscow and St Petersburg, Russia’s second-largest city.
“The fact that Ukraine is reminding the Moscow population that it is vulnerable to these attacks is likely to intensify the mix of concerns now,” Gould Davies said. “I see no prospect though, in the shorter term, that even these factors together will induce Russia to consider the compromises that will be necessary for peace negotiations.”
Ukrainian drones are also striking oil facilities deep inside Russia, sending up plumes of smoke visible from space and bringing toxic rain to tourist destinations on the Black Sea. The attacks aim to slash Moscow’s oil exports, a key source of funding for the invasion.
The economic impact remains unclear — rising oil prices from the Iran war, and a related easing of US sanctions, have helped replenish the Kremlin’s coffers — but the range of the strikes and their environmental impact are bringing the war home to ordinary Russians far from the front lines.
Russia attacked Ukraine with 287 drones overnight into Sunday, 279 of which were shot down or jammed, the Ukrainian air force said. The strikes wounded eight people in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region: three in the regional capital of Dnipro, four in Zelenskyy’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih, and one in the Synelkove district, Ukraine’s state emergency service said.
Residential buildings were damaged in all three locations, the service said.
