Russia says it downed 808 Ukrainian drones in one night as Sobyanin reports 630 over the Moscow region

Russia’s defence ministry said it intercepted 808 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions and annexed Crimea between Wednesday night and Thursday morning, 22 October, in one of the largest drone attacks on the Moscow area reported so far. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said 630 Ukrainian drones were tracked over the wider Moscow region overnight, and that air defences intercepted 163 of those heading directly towards the city. Russia struck Ukraine at the same time, and the exchange came hours after U.S. envoy Steve Witkoff finished talks with Vladimir Putin in St Petersburg.

Russian claims and damage reports

According to Sobyanin, two people were wounded in the Voronovo district, south-west of central Moscow. Russian regional authorities also reported casualties and damage elsewhere: in Belgorod region a man died when a Ukrainian drone hit his truck, there were injuries in Kursk’s border areas, residential buildings were damaged in Lipetsk, and power lines came down in Voronezh and Kaluga regions, as reported by the Moscow Times. All of these figures are statements by Russian officials and have not been independently verified.

The Moscow Times also relayed a report from the exiled outlet Astra of an explosion and fire at a storage and logistics facility in Serpukhov, south of the capital, linked by Astra to the Russian defence ministry’s Main Missile and Artillery Directorate. The newspaper said it could not verify that report, and Geopolitiki has not confirmed it from an official source.

Ukraine’s side

On the Ukrainian side, the Moscow Times, citing AFP and Reuters reporting, listed at least seven deaths overnight: three in Zaporizhzhia, two in Donetsk, one in Sumy and one woman in Kharkiv region. The report did not name an official source for each figure, and Geopolitiki has not found a matching official Ukrainian statement, so the numbers should be treated as unconfirmed.

Separately, Ukraine’s General Staff said its forces struck several Russian targets on 22 October and overnight into 23 October. According to the report by Interfax-Ukraine, the General Staff named a site in the Donetsk area used to store, prepare and launch attack drones, a unit command post near Hromove in occupied Crimea, an ammunition depot near Hirniak, a drone depot near Sverdlove in Donetsk region, logistics depots near Berdianske, Balkove and Orikhivka, and an area where personnel of the Rubikon unit were concentrated near Kamyanka in Zaporizhzhia region. The General Staff said that striking drone facilities “diminishes the enemy’s capacity to attack Ukraine”. These are Ukrainian claims and Russia has not confirmed them.

Talks in the background

The strikes came as Washington tries to restart three-way negotiations that have been stalled since February. The Moscow Times reported that Witkoff’s meeting with Putin in St Petersburg ended only hours earlier, that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Wednesday that Kyiv supports a U.S. proposal for talks between Ukraine, Russia and the United States, and that the Kremlin said Putin agreed to resume U.S.-mediated talks “as early as next month”. Semafor quoted U.S. President Donald Trump as saying the two sides were “the closest we’ve been” to agreeing a truce. Geopolitiki covered the Kremlin’s timetable in Kremlin says Russia is ready to resume trilateral Ukraine talks around 10 November after Putin meets Witkoff.