Deadly Ukrainian Drone Assault on Moscow Region Sparks Massive Fires and Escalates Long-Range War

Workers gather near a destroyed residential building hit by what Russian-installed authorities described as a Ukrainian overnight drone attack in Donetsk, a Russian-controlled city, October 5, 2026. Ukraine has launched a major drone attack on Moscow, killing two people and setting fire to a warehouse in the capital city, Russian officials say.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin stated on Tuesday that the overnight assault involved 650 drones heading towards the city, most of which were shot down, as both sides intensify long-range strikes on infrastructure before winter. Regional Governor Andrei Vorobyov confirmed that one person was killed in Radumlya and another in Barbybino, with seven others injured and dozens of homes and vehicles damaged across the area.

Prominent war blogger Yuri Podolyaka reported that an oil storage tank was hit at the Volodarskaya oil storage and distribution facility, the largest in the Moscow region. While there was no official confirmation of this strike, the facility is a major hub linked to Moscow's main oil refinery and supplies fuel to all three of the capital's large airports. Ukraine has increasingly targeted such energy infrastructure to deprive Moscow of war revenues.

Reporting from Moscow, Al Jazeera’s Dmitry Medvenko noted that the attack ended a relative lull in large Ukrainian strikes on the capital since September 20. In a separate incident on Tuesday, a Ukrainian drone attack on a minibus in the Russian-occupied part of the Ukrainian Zaporizhia region killed three people, according to Moscow-installed authorities.

Meanwhile, Russia has intensified its own attacks on the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, targeting bridges across the Dnipro River with waves of missiles and drones. Kremlin-appointed official Yevgeny Balitsky stated on Telegram that the drone strike in Zaporizhia also wounded three passengers. Both nations continue to ramp up strikes as diplomacy fails to halt the conflict and the United Nations warns of a rising civilian death toll.