Drone alarm in Moscow: Four airports closed for hours

Moscow's air defense reports 59 intercepted drones

The airport closures were part of a large-scale drone wave that reached Moscow during the night of Monday. Rescue forces had been dispatched to the crash sites, Sobyanin wrote. There were initially no reports of damage from falling drone parts within the city area.

While the Russian capital was dealing with the consequences of the drone attacks, from the Ukrainian perspective nightly Russian attacks struck several regions of the country. According to Ukrainian authorities, a total of several civilians were killed.

Attacks on several Ukrainian regions

The northern region of Sumy was particularly hard hit, according to the reports. There, a 13-year-old boy, his father and his grandmother were killed in a Russian drone attack shortly before 5:00 a.m. local time, the local prosecutor's office said. The mother and two siblings of the family survived the attack, according to the reports. Overall, three people were killed in the drone strikes in Sumy.

Family killed in the Sumy region

In the southern Ukrainian region of Odesa, according to the regional administration, one person was killed and three others injured when Russia fired an Iskander-type ballistic missile at an agricultural facility. Vehicles and fuel tanks caught fire, Governor Oleh Kiper said on the messaging service Telegram.

Missile strike on agricultural facility in Odesa

In Zaporizhzhia in southeastern Ukraine, a drone attack also claimed one fatality and three injuries, according to authorities. Governor Ivan Fedorov reported this on Telegram. The exact number of civilians killed in total in Ukraine could not be clearly derived from the reports, as information from various regions contained some overlaps.

Civilian cargo ship hit in the Black Sea

Russian drone attacks also struck civilian shipping in the Black Sea. In Russian drone attacks on a cargo ship in the Black Sea heading to Ukraine, one person was killed. The fatality was the Egyptian cook, Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Oleksiy Kuleba said on Monday on the online service Telegram. The ship named "Victress" was sailing under the flag of Panama.

Eight other sailors were rescued from the no longer seaworthy ship. During the same night, according to Ukrainian information, two other ships under the flags of Belize and Palau were attacked, with no casualties to complain about. The incidents illustrate the expansion of drone attacks to civilian sea routes.

Restrictions in Crimea

In parallel, the situation worsened on the peninsula of Crimea annexed by Russia. The governor of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhayev, canceled all public outdoor events for Monday and announced that the street lighting in the port city would be switched off. The governor of Crimea and Sevastopol also called on the population to save electricity.

The measures are connected to a strained supply situation on the peninsula. Previously, Ukrainian drone attacks on supply routes and energy facilities had led to a fuel shortage in the holiday region popular with Russian tourists. Private individuals and companies in Crimea are no longer allocated fuel, according to the regional administration; it will be distributed exclusively to government agencies responsible for the operation and security of the peninsula.

Already the day before, on June 21, 2026, Ukrainian drones had caused explosions and fires in Crimea, in which there were said to have been fatalities and injuries. The exact number of victims was not conclusively apparent from the available reports.

Diplomatic background and German arms aid

Against the backdrop of this escalation, there are diplomatic signals from Kyiv. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky stated in an interview that Germany would deliver 600 Patriot air defense missiles from German production to Ukraine. According to the German Defense Ministry, the first missiles produced in Germany are to be available at the beginning of the year 2027. The first production facility for Patriot missiles outside the USA is currently being built in Schrobenhausen in Bavaria.

Zelensky also said he saw positive signals from the USA that Ukraine would also receive a license for the independent production of Patriot missiles. With regard to Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko, Zelensky said that he must demonstrate de-escalation beyond words. His 'I apologize' he should keep to himself, that has not worked since the first day of the war.

The casualty figures mentioned in the report from the various regions of Ukraine cannot be independently verified. It also remains unclear how many of the mentioned victims are attributable to the respective regions and whether there are some overlaps.

Overall, the report illustrates a continuing mutual escalation with drones, which both reaches the capital of one country and claims civilian victims in several regions of the other country. The closure of Moscow's airports shows that the drone attacks have now reached the Russian hinterland and that the capital's air defense is being massively challenged.