Moscow Downs ~60 Drones; Russian Strikes Kill Five in Ukraine
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- Moscow intercepted nearly 60 drones in the early hours of Monday, per Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, temporarily shutting Sheremetyevo, Domodedovo, Vnukovo, and Zhukovskiy airports before flights resumed.
- Russia's defense ministry said 301 drones were downed overnight in total, a figure that includes Russian-occupied areas of Ukraine.
- Moscow's drone defense was activated days after Ukraine struck the city's sole oil refinery last week — one of the largest air attacks on the Russian capital since the 2022 full-scale invasion.
- Russian strikes killed at least five people in Ukraine: a 13-year-old, his father, and grandmother in Sumy region (the mother and two siblings were injured), a woman in Zaporizhzhia, and one person in Odesa from an Iskander ballistic missile that ignited fuel tanks at an agricultural facility.
- Russian drones struck three Black Sea merchant vessels overnight — the Turkish-operated, Panamanian-flagged dry cargo ship Victress, killing a 58-year-old Egyptian cook and forcing eight crew members, including Turkish and Indian nationals, into a lifeboat, while Palau- and Belize-flagged vessels were hit but continued sailing.
- Sevastopol in Russian-annexed Crimea cancelled open-air public events, switched off street lights, and restricted fuel sales to government agencies, as Ukraine's drone campaign on supply routes and energy facilities triggers a fuel crisis on the peninsula.
Why it matters: The overnight exchange marks a two-front escalation: Ukraine is now reaching Moscow's oil refinery and capital airspace with near-daily barrages, while Russia is widening its strikes to foreign-flagged merchant ships — the Egyptian cook's death on the Victress extends the war's human toll beyond Ukraine's borders. Crimea's fuel rationing shows Kyiv's drone campaign is already squeezing Russian-occupied supply chains.
