Ukraine’s drone attacks caused widespread disruption across Russia, with Moscow’s airports being forced to close and damage to residential buildings reported across the capital
Ukraine triggered chaos and panic in Moscow as dozens of attack drones swarmed around the Russian capital.
Strikes hit a key Putin microchip plant in Zelenograd district, with explosions igniting a drone-making plant, another defence plant in Dubna, as well as a key nuclear research base in Moscow region. Both strikes are seen as causing significant damage to the Kremlin’s war machine, as Russian air defences exploded incoming drones to avert more damage.
One video showed fearful Russians running for cover under trees as waves of unmanned planes hit the city and surrounding areas. There was major disruption at Moscow’s major airports, which were forced to close amid the drone attacks, leading to huge flight delays.
READ MORE: Ban on Ukraine firing missiles into Russia secretly lifted months ago under Joe Biden
Aeroflot state airline flights were among those rerouted and delayed by the mayhem, due to the temporary closure of its Sheremetyevo hub. The hits came soon after the Kremlin sought to slap down Donald Trump who had bluntly told Vladimir Putin that “if it weren’t for me, lots of really bad things would have already happened to Russia, and I mean REALLY BAD. He’s playing with fire.”
Putin sidekick Dmitry Medvedev, a former Kremlin president and prime minister, now a top security and political official, threatened the West with World War Three, declaring on Telegram and X: “I only know of one REALLY BAD thing – WWIII. I hope Trump understands this!”
The governor of the Moscow Region, Andrei Vorobyov, said some 42 Ukrainian drones had been shot down. Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said 33 had been destroyed over the city. In all, hundreds of drones were unleashed on Russia after recent brutal attacks by Putin on Ukraine.
Damage to residential buildings was reported as one resident said: “What kind of a nightmare is this?” In Troitsk, a town in Chelyabinsk Oblast, and in Moscow, there was blind terror as young Russians were heard in panic over the drones.
“Get down, get down. Drone’s flying,” says one voice. “Come here, come here, come here. Diana, under the tree, let’s go, let’s go. All right, easy, easy.” A woman told how “we stood under the trees, where there were cars, private houses, and that’s where the shrapnel fell. A friend was hit by shrapnel. The shrapnel, which is large, huge, hit around residential houses.
“Everyone scattered to wherever they were going. Fear had taken hold of us.” The Mikron microchip plant in Moscow region is key to Russian defence needs amid sanctions, and supplies hi-tech electronics for weapons, as well as counting Putin’s feared FSB security service as a customer.
The ELMA Technopark – a key microelectronics hub – was also hit. Reports said in Dubna the target was Kronstadt state-of-the-art UAV manufacturing plant that mass produces multiple types of drones used by the Russian armed forces in Ukraine, including Orion, Sirius, and Grom.
There were also claims of a confirmed strike in Dubna at N.P. Fedorov Machine-Building Plant (DMZ), making aviation and rocket technology. Sergei Markov, director of Russia’s Institute of Political Studies, warned: “Dubna became the target of a massive attack by Ukrainian drones. The attack lasted two-and-a-half hours.
“The Institute of Nuclear Research is also located in Dubna, and there is a [synchrotron particle accelerator] and a cyclotron. These are huge structures for nuclear processes, many tens of metres long. An attack on Dubna carries the threat of nuclear contamination of large areas.”
Footage showed the moment of the strike in Dubna. The Medvedev threat on a new world war led to an angry riposte from Trump special presidential envoy Keith Kellogg.
“Furthering fears of World War III is an unfortunate, reckless comment by Dmitry Medvedev, unbecoming of a world power,” he said. “President Trump is working to stop this war and end the killing. We are awaiting the memo you promised a week ago.”
Kellogg said the combined losses in the 39 month war exceed 1.2 million. “President Trump is absolutely right. We have to stop this killing,” he told Fox News. “When you look at the numbers, this is mass murder – on an industrial scale. The losses on both sides are already 1.2 million.” This is more than US losses in World War Two.
Russia carried on its onslaught on Ukraine, aiming Iskander missiles at Kremenchug, and drones at Poltava region, overnight. Residents in Poltava heard sonic booms from missiles exceeding the speed of sound.
It comes after we revealed that a ban on Ukraine using western-supplied weapons to attack Russia was secretly lifted months ago under Joe Biden. Kyiv military sources say permission was quietly granted as long back as in November 2024 for troops to fire deadly missiles at Russian targets.
It means NATO countries such as the UK could face a major escalation in tensions with the Kremlin and hostilities could be more open. The Daily Mirror warned earlier this month that tension with Moscow was making the UK particularly vulnerable to Russian-backed sabotage attacks. Three recent arson attacks on cars linked to Prime Minister Keir Starmer may have links to Russia, police believe, although Moscow has denied this.
For months now Ukraine has been hammering targets deep with Russian territory, particularly ammunition and kamikaze drone factories. It had been believed Ukraine was restricted to. firing missiles into Russia only if they were in defence of Ukrainian positions in Kursk. But in fact the wider ban was lifted at that time, an action that was kept secret, according to Kyiv sources.