Ukraine on Sunday launched one of its largest drone assaults on Russia since the start of the war, killing at least four people and injuring about a dozen others.
The barrage targeted more than a dozen regions, including Moscow. Russia’s Defense Ministry said that air defenses intercepted and destroyed more than 550 drones over a nine-hour period ending early Sunday, with additional drones shot down afterward.
Russian state news agency TASS described the strike on Moscow as “the largest in over a year.”
The Security Service of Ukraine confirmed the operation targeted fuel infrastructure in Moscow Oblast and air defense systems at Belbek airfield in Crimea.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the strikes were retaliation for Russia’s continued attacks on Ukrainian cities. Zelenskyy said Russia launched more than 3,170 attack drones, over 1,300 guided aerial bombs and 74 missiles against Ukraine over the past week.
Our responses to Russia’s prolongation of the war and its attacks on our cities and communities are entirely justified. This time, Ukrainian long-range sanctions reached the Moscow region, and we are clearly telling the Russians: their state must end its war. Ukrainian drone and… pic.twitter.com/BVFJ1BJQ1i
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) May 17, 2026
“Our responses to Russia’s prolongation of the war and its attacks on our cities and communities are entirely justified. This time, Ukrainian long-range sanctions reached the Moscow region, and we are clearly telling the Russians: their state must end its war,” Zelenskyy said on X.
Separately, Ukraine’s Unmanned Systems Forces said its drones struck a Russian Project 10410 patrol ship in the Caspian Sea port of Kaspiisk in Dagestan during overnight operations Friday into Saturday.
Footage released by the Ukrainian military showed what it said was an FP-1 strike drone hitting the patrol vessel near its stern while the ship appeared to be engaging aerial targets.
It was the fourth Russian vessel struck in the Caspian Sea in May. On May 7, Ukrainian forces hit a Project 22800 Karakurt-class small missile ship, while on May 15, they struck both a small missile ship and a minesweeper.
According to Unmanned Systems Forces commander Robert Brovdi, known by the callsign “Madyar,” Ukrainian drone units carried out 186 strikes against 46 Russian military targets over two nights across occupied Crimea and Russian-occupied parts of the Donetsk, Luhansk and Zaporizhzhia regions.
