This is a new, separate overnight attack from the one Awaaz Punjab reported on Thursday, when Russia and Ukraine traded attacks on Kyiv and Moscow hours after the Abu Dhabi talks and US envoys Jared Kushner and Steve Witkoff flew on to meet President Vladimir Putin. The wave reported here came the following night, Thursday night into Friday morning, November 12-13. Read the earlier report: capitals trade attacks as envoys meet Putin
MOSCOW — Ukraine sent a large wave of drones at Moscow overnight on Thursday into Friday, November 12-13, and Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said Russian air defences intercepted 105 unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) bound for the capital between 9:34 p.m. and 2:08 a.m. local time, The Kyiv Independent reported, citing Russian officials.
Source: The Kyiv Independent
Russia's Federal Air Transport Agency, Rosaviatsiya, announced restrictions on flight operations at three Moscow Oblast airports — Sheremetyevo, Domodedovo and Zhukovsky — saying the facilities were accepting and dispatching flights only subject to agreement with the relevant authorities because of temporary airspace restrictions. The Independent reported disruption across all four of Moscow's main airports, including Vnukovo, with flights grounded and delayed.
Source: The Independent
Sobyanin said emergency crews had been dispatched to areas affected by falling drone wreckage. No details of damage or casualties in the Moscow region had been reported as of publication. The Kyiv Independent said it could not confirm Sobyanin's claims, and noted that Russian officials report only the drones they say were intercepted, so the total number of drones Ukraine launched overnight is not known.
Separate reports said fires broke out during the night at the Lukoil oil refinery in Volgograd and at a production facility in Rostov-on-Don, deep inside Russia. Those fire reports were carried by Ukrainian monitoring outlets and had not been independently confirmed as of publication, and Ukraine had not officially claimed the night's operations in the reports.
The attack came only hours after a day of intensive diplomacy. On Thursday, US envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met President Putin at the Kremlin for about three hours, after two days of trilateral talks with Ukraine in Abu Dhabi. The envoys said Putin had agreed to let European representatives join the next round of peace talks, and Kushner said Washington was working on what could be the largest prisoner exchange of the war. Ukraine's President Volodymyr Zelensky called the agreement on a prisoner exchange a real result of the talks.
Source: The Independent
The drone wave also landed while Russia's own strikes on Ukraine's energy system continue. President Zelensky has said Russia has carried out more than 310 strikes on energy targets since November 1, leaving some 700,000 families without power — figures given by the Ukrainian side that could not be independently verified in the reports. On Thursday, a Russian strike killed a woman in a Kyiv apartment block in the Solomyanskyi district.
Russia's massive overnight strike on Ukraine, including the drone that hit the Kyiv apartment block, is covered in our earlier report. Read: Russia's massive overnight strike on Ukraine
What is solid
- Rosaviatsiya imposed temporary flight restrictions at Sheremetyevo, Domodedovo and Zhukovsky airports overnight, reported by The Kyiv Independent and The Independent
- Russian officials reported a mass Ukrainian drone attack on Moscow overnight on November 12-13
What is only claimed
- The figure of 105 intercepted drones is Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin's claim; The Kyiv Independent could not confirm it and the total number launched is unknown
- Reported fires at the Volgograd refinery and a Rostov-on-Don facility are not independently confirmed
Background: Ukrainian drones have repeatedly closed Moscow's skies in recent weeks. On October 23, flights at all four main airports were grounded during an overnight assault, with photos on social media allegedly showing debris from a downed drone on the tarmac at Sheremetyevo. Earlier in October, on October 6, Ukraine allegedly fired 650 drones at Moscow Oblast, causing a fire at a major oil facility, according to The Kyiv Independent's background reporting.
What happens next: Moscow's airports were operating under the Rosaviatsiya restrictions as the night ended, and travellers faced delays while the limits stayed in place. Diplomats, meanwhile, are working on the next round of Ukraine peace talks, which the US envoys say will include European representatives for the first time — even as both capitals keep coming under fire at night.