Firefighters work following a missile attack in a village outside Kyiv on Aug. 30. Photo: Anatolii Stepanov/AFP via Getty Images
A wave of drone strikes targeted six Russian regions on Wednesday, even as Russia launched a barrage of missile strikes on the Ukrainian capital.
Why it matters: Russia has accused Ukraine of launching the attack, which appears to be the biggest drone assault on Russian soil since the start of its invasion in Feb. 2022, per AP.
- Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova said at a press briefing Wednesday that Ukraine would "not go unpunished," the BBC reported.
- Attacks that deep inside Russia wouldn't be possible without Western intelligence, she added.
State of play: Ukraine, which typically does not comment on drone strikes on Russian soil, has not claimed responsibility for the attacks in the Russian regions of Pskov, Bryansk, Kaluga, Orlov, Ryazan and Moscow.
- In Pskov, the strikes caused a fire at the city's airport and damaged military transport planes, Russian state news agency TASS reported.
- All four airports in the Moscow region temporarily suspended operations due to the strikes, and the Pskov airport will remain closed Wednesday, per TASS.
- Russian officials reported no casualties from the strikes.
What they're saying: Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters Wednesday that military experts were working to determine where the attacks had been launched in order to prevent future strikes, TASS reported.
Meanwhile, Russia launched a barrage of missile strikes on Kyiv Wednesday.
- "Kyiv has not experienced such a powerful attack since spring," Serhiy Popko, head of Kyiv's military administration, said in a Telegram post.
- Ukraine's military chief Gen. Valeriy Zaluzhnyi wrote in a Telegram post Wednesday that Ukrainian airforces destroyed 28 cruise missiles and 15 out of 16 Iranian-made Shahed drones.
- Two men — aged 26 and 36 years old — were killed as a result of the strikes, the city's military administration wrote in a Telegram post.
- Three others were injured and 17 homes were damaged, the Kyiv regional military administration added.