Debris in front of a damaged apartment building following a reported Ukrainian drone strike in the Moscow suburb of Krasnogorsk, 24 October 2025. Photo: EPA / Maxim Shipenkov
Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said in a Telegram post on Monday that over 250 Ukrainian drones targeting the Russian capital had been intercepted by the Russian military over the weekend.
If confirmed, the barrage of Ukrainian drones would be the largest attack on Moscow since the start of the year. However, due to the severe internet outages that have plagued the city for over two weeks, the veracity of Sobyanin’s claims have proven challenging to verify.
Reports of Ukrainian drone strikes appeared primarily in Telegram channels known to have close ties to Russia’s security apparatus, and lacked the photo or video evidence from witnesses which has characterised previous Ukrainian drone attacks deep inside Russia.
Residents allegedly witnessed drones flying overhead in several areas west and northwest of Moscow. Explosions were said to have been heard in nearby cities including Podolsk, Dubna and Domodedovo, and in the military town of Kubinka.
Novaya Gazeta Europe examined several Telegram channels associated with residents and local governments in these areas, but found no reports of drone sightings, and little evidence that residents had witnessed anything unusual.
One Telegram channel based in Dubna reported on air defence operations on Sunday evening, but comments from residents were mostly complaints of power outages. Almost all other local channels checked by Novaya Gazeta Europe seem to have missed the massive drone strike entirely.
On Saturday, Ukrainian media outlet Exilenova+ published three videos purporting to show drone strikes on Moscow, but did not specify where or when the videos were taken. Novaya Gazeta Europe found no other independent evidence of the strikes.
Russian open source intelligence analyst Kirill Mikhailov told independent news outlet Agentstvo that the lack of visual confirmation of the drones was highly unusual, adding that “even the smallest number of drones” would normally result in photo or video evidence.
The alleged drone strikes on Moscow come during the second week of massive internet outages in the capital, which the Kremlin has publicly attributed to necessary countermeasures against sophisticated Ukrainian drone attacks.
However, the recent implementation of “whitelists” of approved websites on Moscow’s internet networks suggest that the outages are part of a wider Kremlin crackdown on uncensored access to online content, which has seen popular platforms such as Whatsapp and Telegram targeted by the authorities.
