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Russia's Defense Ministry said its air defense systems destroyed 268 Ukrainian drones across multiple regions on Saturday, including 15 over the Moscow area, in what amounts to one of the largest single-day drone barrages reported since the full-scale war began.
The ministry said the drones were shot down between 9:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. local time, capping a punishing 24-hour stretch in which Russian forces claimed to have neutralized a combined total of more than 420 unmanned aerial vehicles.
Earlier, the Defense Ministry had reported downing 156 Ukrainian drones between 11:00 p.m. the previous night and 9:00 a.m. Saturday morning. Combined with the daytime figure of 268, the back-to-back waves brought the total number of drones Russia claimed to have intercepted within roughly 21 hours to 424.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on his Telegram channel that emergency crews were deployed to locations where debris from intercepted drones had fallen. He did not specify whether the fragments caused casualties or significant damage.
The 15 drones downed over the Moscow region underscore Kyiv's increasing willingness to strike deep into Russian territory, bringing the conflict closer to the country's political and economic center, home to more than 13 million people.
Both Russia and Ukraine have relied heavily on drones throughout the war, using them for reconnaissance, targeted strikes, and large-scale attrition campaigns against military and infrastructure targets. Ukraine has steadily expanded the range and volume of its drone operations, developing domestically produced long-range systems capable of reaching well beyond the front lines. Russia, in turn, has scaled up its air defense networks and launched its own waves of drone and missile strikes against Ukrainian cities.
The figures reported by the Russian Defense Ministry could not be independently verified. Both sides in the conflict have at times overstated enemy losses or understated their own.
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