Moscow's Air Defences Shoot Down Seven Drones as Ukraine Extends Strikes Deep Into Russia

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said air defences destroyed seven drones flying toward the Russian capital overnight. The independent Russian outlet Ostorozhno Novosti reported that its readers heard several loud explosions in the area of Podolsk, a city on Moscow's southern approach. Independent verification of what was intercepted and what struck the ground is not available.

The state agency RIA Novosti reported that air defence forces destroyed 18 Ukrainian drones over the Oryol region and that authorities declared a drone-danger regime in Chelyabinsk region, more than 1,500 kilometres from the Ukrainian border. Russia's foreign ministry, through Rodion Miroshnik, its envoy responsible for documenting alleged Ukrainian war crimes, said Ukrainian forces fired more than a thousand munitions a day at Russian territory over the past week and gave regional tallies of civilian casualties and damaged homes, with Belgorod region among the most affected. Ukraine does not confirm Russian casualty figures, and Kyiv describes its long-range campaign as directed at military and energy targets.

Russian regional authorities are also rationing fuel. In the Altai Republic, daily purchase limits were raised to 50 litres of petrol and 100 litres of diesel from 30 and 50 respectively, an adjustment that only makes sense where limits were imposed in the first place.

The geographic spread is the notable pattern here. Air-defence alerts in the Urals and fuel limits in Siberia show that the war's operating costs have extended far beyond the front line. Insurance, aviation scheduling, refinery downtime and internal security personnel are all being consumed inside Russia, and none of that spending produces anything of economic value.