Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said overnight on October 28-29th that more than 600 drones from Ukraine were fired at the Moscow region overnight, as reported by the Kyiv Independent.
Of the 613 drones that were shot towards Moscow, 231 were shot down while they approached the Russian capital. There were no reports of casualties or damage done to Russian buildings.
Putin at May 2026 Awards Creative Commons Photo
Putin in March 2022 Creative Commons Image
“Throughout the night, Sobyanin reported several waves of attacks that reportedly included dozens of drones,” the Independent report said.
As a result, Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviatsiya) announced it was restricting flights at Vnukovo, Domodedovo, and Zhukovsky, three of the region’s four major airports.
In addition, two flights from Istanbul to Moscow turned back because of those airport restrictions.
This isn’t the first time this month; drone barrages disrupted traffic at all four Moscow-area airports on October 23.
Telegram reports also cited explosions near Naro-Fominsk, about 50 kilometers Southwest of Moscow.
Targeting a Chemical Facility
According to the Kyiv Post, Ukrainian drones reportedly targeted a chemical facility in Bashkortostan, as smoke was seen rising from the Bashkir Soda Company complex.
The Kyiv Post describes BSC as Russia’s “leading producer of soda ash and baking soda.”
However, the Russian Ministry of Industry and Trade also lists it as a “defense-related enterprise.” Ukraine had targeted the same facility in late August, the report said.
The company, according to the report, “supplies military-industrial plants with hydrochloric acid and dichloroethane and is Russia’s sole producer of terephthaloyl chloride,” which can be used in body armor, helmets, and other military protective gear.
Kyiv Post also reported that drone alerts had sounded in different parts of Russia’s Perm Territory.
Overnight, that report said, Russia’s Defense Ministry had claimed that it had intercepted and destroyed 1,214 Ukrainian fixed-wing drones across the entirety of Russia overnight, including in Moscow and in several other regions: “Bryansk, Belgorod, Kursk, Kaluga, Tula, Smolensk, Lipetsk, Voronezh, Tver, Oryol, Ryazan, Vladimir, Samara, Saratov, Penza, and Rostov.”
Per Bloomberg News, that would be the highest single-day total of drone interceptions to date, and it occurred while Russian President Vladimir Putin was holding a summit with African leaders.
Per Reuters, Putin has told African leaders he can be a better ally than the West.
The News From Novomoskovsk
Also, per Kyiv Post, Russia continued to deal with the aftermath of the drone attack on Novomoskovsk, in the Tula region, on Wednesday, which reportedly hit the Azot chemical plant.
However, Russian authorities have not acknowledged it.
Vladimir Tokarev, first deputy head of the Novomoskovsk administration, said that specialists were “sealing the thermal envelopes of damaged homes, clearing the areas, and inspecting the buildings.”
Tula Region Governor Dmitry Milyaev added that “the state of the ambient air in Novomoskovsk is within normal limits.”
A Deadly Train Station Attack in Ukraine
On the other side of the war, a Russian drone attack on Thursday hit a train station in Dnipro, Ukraine, killing at least 13 people and wounding ten, including an 11-year-old boy.
According to the BBC, the attack was carried out with a jet-powered Russian drone.
An elevated threat warning had been issued before the attack, but “unfortunately there were still a large number of people on the platform,” Ukraine Railways head Oleksandr Pertsovsky said, per the BBC.
In addition, two 15-year-old girls were killed in a Russian missile attack on Chernihiv city in northern Ukraine, while 11 others were injured in that attack.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky addressed the train station attack, declaring that Russia had “used a drone to attack a platform where a regular commuter train and a regular passenger train were standing.”
The Ukrainian leader went on to call for additional sanctions from the U.S., Europe, and the G7 on Russia.
The BBC also reported that Russia has hit 521 train locomotives in Ukraine since the initial invasion in 2022, and that 60 percent of them took place this year.
Overall railway attacks, the report said, “have risen from 1,206 in 2025 to 1,700 so far this year.”
About the Author: Stephen Silver
Stephen Silver is an award-winning journalist, essayist, and film critic, and contributor to the Philadelphia Inquirer, the Jewish Telegraphic Agency, Broad Street Review, and Splice Today. The co-founder of the Philadelphia Film Critics Circle, Stephen lives in suburban Philadelphia with his wife and two sons. For over a decade, Stephen has written thousands of articles on politics, national security, technology, and the economy. Follow him on X (formerly Twitter) at @StephenSilver, and subscribe to his Substack newsletter.
