Ukraine launches 822 drones at Russia as Romania downs airspace intruder

Ukraine and Russia exchanged major long-range strikes on Sunday, causing deaths and fires on both sides. The fighting spread into neighbouring Romania, where a Spanish F-18 downed a drone inside NATO airspace.Ukraine launched hundreds of drones across Russia on Sunday in one of Kyiv's biggest aerial attacks of the war, killing at least six people, according to Russian officials. At the same time, Russia struck targets in Ukraine, where five people were reported killed and fires broke out in Kyiv, including at one of the capital's best-known book markets.The latest attacks underlined the widening air war, with both sides targeting sites far from the front line. In a separate development, Romania said a Spanish Air and Space Force F-18 fighter jet shot down a drone after it entered Romanian airspace early on Sunday.Russia's Ministry of Defence said it destroyed 822 Ukrainian drones overnight. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said around 600 drones were detected heading towards the Russian capital, with about a third of them destroyed over the Moscow region itself. In the Moscow region, Governor Andrey Vorobyov said an 83-year-old man was killed after a Ukrainian drone hit a private home. He also said a Ukrainian attack caused a fire at a Wildberries warehouse in the town of Podolsk.In Russia's southwestern Rostov region, Governor Yury Slyusar said a drone attack on three towns killed five people. He said more than 150 drones were involved, damaging several homes and a railway station and starting a forest fire. Ukraine has stepped up attacks on Russia this year, using long-range missiles and swarms of drones against military industries and energy facilities. It has also repeatedly hit large Wildberries depots, burning merchandise worth billions of dollars belonging to the Russian online retail company. On the Ukrainian side, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said a Russian missile attack on Kryvyi Rih killed two people and wounded 14 others. He also said one more person was killed in Sumy. ArcelorMittal Kryvyi Rih, Ukraine's largest steel producer, said one of its sites was hit in the missile strike and that operations had been partly suspended. In the southern Zaporizhzhia region, Ivan Fedorov, head of the local military administration, said a man and a woman were killed when their home was hit by a Russian strike.Russian attacks also caused fires across Kyiv and wounded six people. One of the fires tore through a major book market near the Pochaina metro station, with kiosks and pavilions damaged as black smoke rose over the city. "Wherever the Russians can reach with their ballistic missiles, they strike civilian infrastructure," Zelenskyy said. Russia's Ministry of Defense said it had targeted a metallurgical plant in Kryvyi Rih and several military-industrial sites in Kyiv, including a facility producing Ukraine's Flamingo missiles. Zelenskyy had said on Saturday that Ukraine used the domestically produced missiles to strike a rocket research and production centre in Samara, around 900 km from the Ukrainian border. Romania's Ministry of National Defence said surveillance systems detected a drone entering Romanian airspace at 4:44 am, about 24 km north of Galati near the border with Moldova. It said a Spanish F-18 on air policing duty made radar contact with the target, received approval to engage and shot it down at 5:01 am. The ministry later said drone debris was also reported in the Black Sea at around 10 am, about 1.5 km from Constanta. Officials did not say where the drone came from. Acting Foreign Minister Oana Toiu said on X that the Spanish deployment in Romania had been increased "at the request of Romania and NATO to bolster the Eastern Flank following prior drone incidents", and that this was Spain's fourth such deployment.Sunday's attacks left at least six people dead in Russia and five in Ukraine, while also drawing in neighbouring Romania, where a NATO jet brought down a drone after it crossed into the country's airspace.With PTI Inputs- EndsPublished By: India Today Web Desk Published On: Aug 16, 2026 18:08 IST