UKRAINE HITS MOSCOW WITH 800+ DRONES WHILE RUSSIA ATTACKS KYIV

Sun 16 August 2026:

At least one person was killed and three others wounded in a Ukrainian drone barrage targeting Moscow, a local official reported, as Russia simultaneously bombarded Kyiv with ballistic missiles.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence said its forces destroyed 822 drones across the country overnight. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin stated on social media early Sunday that the city faced an assault involving 600 drones, of which 201 were intercepted in the Moscow region.

Moscow Oblast Governor Andrei Vorobyov reported on Telegram that an 83-year-old man died when a drone struck a private home.

At least five people were killed in attacks on southern Russia’s Rostov region, which borders Ukraine, according to regional authorities.

The drone assault came after Ukrainian authorities said late on Saturday that at least one person was killed and seven were wounded in Russian air attacks.

A woman was killed and six people were wounded in a missile and drone attack on Kryvyi Rih, the hometown of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy in central Ukraine, the region’s governor said.

Officials in the capital said Kyiv was “under ballistic missile attack” late on Saturday, with at least one person wounded and fires sparked at nonresidential sites in the Obolonskyi and Holosiivskyi districts.

Defence and foreign policy analyst Pavel Felgenhauer told Al Jazeera that the targeting of capital cities suggests an escalation in the war. He noted that Ukraine had managed to bypass air defences in the Moscow region, which has the “best and most dense antiair defences in the entirety of Russia”. The attacks did not hit central Moscow but reached the outskirts of the capital, he added.

__________________________________________________________________________

https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaAtNxX8fewmiFmN7N22

__________________________________________________________________________

Separately, Romania’s Ministry of National Defence reported on Sunday that a Spanish F-18 jet on a NATO air policing mission to Romania had shot down a drone breaching its airspace.

Martin O’Donnell, a spokesman for NATO’s military headquarters, said the alliance is prepared to defend itself.

“Additional details regarding Sunday’s incident remain under investigation, but the drone appears to be Russian,” he said.

It was the fourth drone shot down in Romania this year.

The Defence Ministry wrote on social media that the drone came from neighbouring Moldova.

“The surveillance systems of the Ministry of National Defense detected the intrusion of an aerial target into national airspace, coming from the Republic of Moldova,” it said in a statement.

Romanian Defence Minister Radu Miruta congratulated the pilots and military personnel on what he called “a successful mission”.

In July, a Romanian jet shot down a suspected Russian drone, and in May, a stray drone injured two people in the Romanian city of Galati when it collided with a building.

Romania shares a 634km (394-mile) border with Ukraine and has repeatedly seen Russian drones breaching its airspace as Moscow escalates its bombing campaign against Ukrainian civilian and military infrastructure.

Escalating long-range strikes

Russia has maintained near-daily missile and drone strikes across Ukraine since launching its full-scale invasion in early 2022, and areas far from the front lines have frequently come under attack.

The war’s impact has also spread to key regional shipping routes with reports of mines and unmanned sea drones found floating in the Black Sea.

Civilian casualties in Ukraine hit their highest level since 2022 this July, with at least 437 killed and 2,610 injured, according to the United Nations Human Rights Monitoring Mission.

Ukraine has increasingly targeted military, industrial and logistical facilities deep inside Russia, arguing its strikes are a response to Moscow’s ongoing bombardment of Ukrainian towns and infrastructure.

SOURCE: INDEPENDENT PRESS AND NEWS AGENCIES

__________________________________________________________________________

FOLLOW INDEPENDENT PRESS:

WhatsApp CHANNEL
https://whatsapp.com/channel/0029VaAtNxX8fewmiFmN7N22