Overnight drone barrage kills at least seven in Russia and Ukraine as 822 drones target Moscow

Overnight drone barrage

Russia and Ukraine traded overnight air attacks on 16 August, with Ukraine launching 822 drones against Russian territory, 600 of them directed at Moscow, according to Russia's defence ministry. Moscow's mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, said three people were injured and that all drones heading for the city of 13 million residents were shot down, starting from Saturday afternoon. The Russian defence ministry said all 822 drones were destroyed. The assault was described as one of the largest air attacks by Kyiv since the start of the war.

In the Rostov region of southwestern Russia, five people died when three cities were hit by fixed-wing drones and missiles, destroying homes, infrastructure and factories, according to governor Yury Slyusar. In the Moscow region, an 83-year-old man was killed after a Ukrainian drone struck a private house, said governor Andrey Vorobyov. Vorobyov also confirmed that a Ukrainian attack caused a fire at a warehouse belonging to the Russian retailer Wildberries in the city of Podolsk, 36 kilometres from central Moscow. The company confirmed the attack but said all personnel had been evacuated in time. Russian media shared images showing columns of black smoke rising from the site.

Strikes on Kryvy Rih and Dnipropetrovsk

In Ukraine, at least one person was killed and 13 wounded in a Russian overnight attack on Kryvy Rih, the hometown of President Volodymyr Zelensky, according to Oleksandr Ganzha, head of the Regional Military Administration. An industrial enterprise was damaged. Among the wounded was a 48-year-old man transported to hospital in serious condition. Ganzha said on Telegram that Russia attacked two districts more than 20 times using drones, artillery and missiles.

Elsewhere in the Dnipropetrovsk region, the district centre of Nikopol and the communities of Marganets, Myrove, Pokrovsk and Chervonohryhorivka were attacked. A 55-year-old man was wounded and infrastructure, a business, a multi-storey residential building and a private house were damaged.

Discrepancy in tolls

The two countries' authorities gave differing casualty figures. According to officials cited in the reports, the total dead ranged from seven on the Russian side and five on the Ukrainian side, as stated in one report, to at least six dead in Russia and one in Ukraine, as reported in another. The lower Russian figure of six was broken down as five in Rostov and one in the Moscow region, while the higher figure of seven was not disaggregated. The Ukrainian toll of five dead in one report was not broken down beyond the single fatality in Kryvy Rih.

UN monitoring data and Kyiv

The Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, was also targeted by Russian drone and missile attacks overnight. The UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine (HRMMU) reported that July 2026 was the deadliest month in Ukraine since May 2022, with 437 dead and 2,610 wounded. Kyiv was among the hardest hit, with 54 dead and 202 wounded in July alone. In August, Kyiv has counted 17 dead, as Ukraine faced a shortage of interceptors and all Russian attacks reached their targets.