Ukraine Drones Torch Moscow Warehouse In Deep Strike Push
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- Ukraine's 413th Raid Unmanned Systems Regiment launched 20 small drones loaded with explosives from a sunflower field in southern Ukraine toward Russia, with AP journalists witnessing the launch — a rare look at the fast-growing drone effort.
- Commander Yevhen Karas said the unit also struck a Wildberries warehouse about 45 km south of Moscow hours earlier, among Ukraine's biggest attacks on Russia; the targeted logistics centre outside Moscow was still burning the next morning.
- Karas, 38, a philosophy graduate who volunteered on February 24, 2022, lost his brother Volodymyr while defending the Kyiv region and rose to lead the newly formed 413th in 2024; the unit now uses Ukraine-made FP-1 drones with ranges exceeding 1,000 miles.
- The 413th's roster includes former opera singers, programmers, rappers and cellists, and its challenge coin depicts the Kremlin in flames with a drone overhead — Karas wrote a poem on one fuselage: "Moscow burns under the sky, red flame rises so warm and high."
- Karas's stated strategy: inflict economic pain so Russians push Putin toward negotiations, arguing "the bigger casualties they have" the sooner they will seek peace, since US-brokered talks have stalled.
- Ukraine's broader drone campaign has repeatedly hit Wildberries depots containing billions of dollars in goods, forced Russia to spread air defenses across a wider area, disrupted airports, caused fuel shortages and hurt morale, per the report.
Why it matters: Ukraine's 413th Regiment says its FP-1 drone strikes — now reaching more than 1,000 miles into Russia — are designed to impose economic pain on ordinary Russians and break Putin's refusal to negotiate, with Karas explicitly tying civilian pressure to a hoped-for peace settlement.
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