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Tuesday, 18 August 2026dailybeirut.com
World
Moscow city authorities reported at least 620 drones launched against the capital region overnight, with regional officials confirming three injuries—including a 10-year-old girl—and damage to infrastructure including a Wildberries logistics facility.
Russian authorities confirmed that at least 620 unmanned aerial vehicles were launched against the Moscow region during the night, according to Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, who announced the figure early Tuesday morning.
Sobyanin stated on Telegram that air defense forces shot down 180 of the drones over Moscow between Monday evening and 5:00 a.m. local time—2:00 a.m. GMT—while regional Governor Andrey Vorobyov reported three people injured in the attacks, including a 10-year-old girl.
Vorobyov described the operation as a “large-scale drone attack” targeting the Moscow region overnight and into the early morning hours, adding that air defense and cyber warfare units responded actively. He noted that the most significant damage occurred in Pavlovsky Posad, where a residential building caught fire as a result of the strikes.
A separate drone struck a warehouse belonging to Russian e-commerce giant Wildberries. The company issued a statement confirming that its Moscow-region logistics complex sustained minor damage after drone fragments hit a building wall.
Over recent weeks, Wildberries warehouses have been repeatedly targeted by Ukrainian drone strikes. Kyiv has accused the company of supplying Moscow with components used in drone manufacturing.
With frontline combat largely stalled and diplomatic negotiations suspended, both Russia and Ukraine have intensified long-range drone operations, pushing fatalities to their highest levels since the war’s initial months in 2022, according to Agence France-Presse.
