Russia's Defense Ministry claimed Friday morning that the military intercepted at least 660 Ukrainian drones across the country and Crimea, in what shaped up to be one of the most massive overnight aerial assaults since the 2022 invasion began. Drones being sent across the border in the hundreds has become a nightly, highly escalatory affair of late.
Anti-air defenses in the capital region were busy, with Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin confirming that at least 47 inbound drones on a were downed starting around 2:30am local time. Sobyanin reported no casualties or structural damage, stating only that emergency services were working at the sites of fallen debris. This month has already witnessed several instances of major airport closures among the capital's four commercial hubs.
If Russia did indeed down around 660 drones, this means there there was possibly over a thousand initially launched, given the intercept rate is typically less than the amount of UAV's which make it through. This has been the pattern from both sides of the border.
Drone injures and strikes were reported outside the capital region though. For example in the Tula region, over 110 miles to the south of Moscow, Governor Dmitry Milyayev announced that a woman was wounded during the strike.
He also described that an "industrial facility" was struck in the town of Novomoskovsk. Some unverified reports quickly identified the target as the massive Azot chemical plant. Social media videos point to a drone strike.
Ukraine is intent on making life inside Russia as painful as possible, in order to put pressure on the Kremlin to end the war. According to fresh reporting:
A fast-growing number of regional officials and gas station chains across Russia are restricting gasoline and diesel sales as Ukrainian drone attacks on oil refineries and supply networks take a mounting toll on supplies.
Fuel rationing measures were in place in at least 56 Russian regions as of Thursday, according to open-source data analyzed by The Moscow Times.
In dozens more regions, residents are complaining about fast-rising gasoline prices, closed filling stations and miles-long lines, while some local authorities and major retailers remain hesitant to enact rationing.
“In some districts of our republic, there is no fuel at gas stations right now, so people go to [the capital] Kyzyl to refuel,” said a resident of Tyva, a southern Siberian republic roughly the size of Tunisia.
Ukraine's asymmetric warfare against Russia's much-larger and better armed military machine is in a significantly better position than the status of a year or so ago. Russian forces still have the upper-hand on the front line in the east, but the pain clearly being inflicted on Russia's economy can't be ignored at this point.
In the meantime, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had announced Thursday a 40-day "influence operation" engineered by Ukraine's SBU security service designed to "compel" Russia to end the war.
The sheer volume of Friday's overnight attack underscores that Zelensky and Ukraine's military feel they have some rare momentum going and so must capitalize on it. Many regions of Russia seem powerless to stop the inbound drone waves, given conventional air defenses are set up to defend primarily against larger, faster-moving projectiles like missiles or jets.