A massive drone strike struck Moscow and its surrounding suburbs overnight into Sunday, causing widespread disruption. The attack injured a woman and temporarily halted traffic at some of Russia's busiest airports.
The strike highlights the escalation of conflict between Russia and Ukraine as reports surface that US President Donald Trump may have signaled that Kyiv may have to cede territory for situation to improve.
A top U.K. defence official told Associated Press that Russian forces had suffered their worst month of casualties in October since their full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The chief of the U.K. defence staff, Tony Radakin, told the BBC that Moscow's troops suffered an average of 1,500 dead and wounded “every single day,” bringing their total losses in the war to 700,000.
Russia-Ukraine War | Latest Developments
Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said a total of 32 drones were shot down over the Russian capital's outskirts.
Russia's aviation authority said flights were briefly grounded at major international airports including Sheremetyevo and Domodedovo.
A woman in her 50s suffered burns to her face, neck and hands after drones sparked a blaze in her village southeast of Moscow, local Gov. Andrei Vorobyov reported.
No one was hurt in Moscow itself, according to Sobyanin, although Russian channels on the messaging app Telegram carried eyewitness reports of drone debris setting fire to suburban homes.
According to U.K. defence staff, Tony Radakin, ordinary Russians were paying “an extraordinary price" for the war, even as a grueling, monthslong Russian offensive in Ukraine's industrial east continues to eke out gains.
“There is no doubt that Russia is making tactical, territorial gains and that is putting pressure on Ukraine,” he said. But he said the losses were for “tiny increments of land,” and that Moscow's mounting defense and security spending was putting an increasing strain on the country.
Radakin insisted that Ukraine's Western partners should stand by it for “as long as it takes” to beat back Russian aggression, even as allies of U.S.
President-elect Donald Trump have signaled that Kyiv may have to cede territory to seek peace.
Russia is willing to listen to President-elect Donald Trump's ideas for ending the war, an official said. This comes as a Russian drone attack killed one person and injured 13 in the Ukrainian city of Odesa. Meanwhile, the EU's foreign policy chief is holding talks in Kyiv following the change in U.S. leadership.
Both Moscow and Kyiv have kept a tight lid on casualty figures since the start of the full-scale war despite regular reports of Russian forces taking huge losses following “human wave” attacks that aim to exhaust Ukrainian defences.
