According to the military agency’s official Telegram channel, the interceptions took place in the regions of Belgorod, Bryansk, Kaluga, Krasnodar, Kursk, Lipetsk, Moscow, Novgorod, Oryol, Ryazan, Rostov, Saratov, Smolensk, Stavropol, Tula, Tver, Vladimir, Volgograd, and Voronezh, as well as over the Crimean Peninsula and the Sea of ​​Azov.

  Earlier, the mayor of the Russian capital, Sergei Sobyanin, announced on the social network X that a total of 493 drones had headed toward the Moscow region during the early hours of this Wednesday.

  Sobyanin noted that the majority of the drones were shot down by air defense forces “at long range,” while 180 drones were destroyed as they approached the Russian capital.

  On February 24, 2022, Russia launched a special military operation in Ukraine—according to President Vladimir Putin—to protect the population from “genocide by the Kiev regime” and to counter national security risks posed by the eastward expansion of the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO).

  Drone attacks launched from Ukraine against military and civilian targets in the Russian rear have since become a regular occurrence.

jdt/to/gfa