Passengers wait for their flights at Sheremetyevo International Airport outside Moscow, Russia, on July 7, 2025. Photo by Yuri Kochetkov/EPA
Russia faced a penetrating barrage of drones from Ukraine over the weekend that caused Moscow airports to close amid the intensifying war.
The Russian Defense Ministry said in a series of statements that between 7:45 a.m. local time on July 19 and 5:40 p.m. on July 20, its air defense systems reportedly shot down at least 272 Ukrainian fixed-wing drones across more than a dozen regions.
The Bryansk region saw the heaviest concentration of drone activity, with 108 destroyed across eight separate reporting intervals. Kaluga followed with 55 intercepted drones, and Moscow region accounted for 46, including dozens reportedly flying toward the capital.
Russian officials said drones were also intercepted over Tula, Kursk, Oryol, Smolensk, Belgorod, Nizhny Novgorod, Tver, Ryazan, and Crimea.
The most intense barrage occurred overnight, when 93 drones were downed between 11:30 p.m. and 7 a.m., including 16 reported to be heading for Moscow. The sustained and geographically dispersed attacks marked one of the highest-volume drone operations reported by Russian authorities to date.
The drone strikes caused all four of Moscow’s major airports to close and reopen about ten times in a 24-hour period from Saturday into Sunday, according to a statement from Russia’s Association of Tour Operators, a nonprofit travel industry group. The airport in Kaluga remained mostly closed for 14 hours.
The nonprofit, citing data from the airports, said that the closures led to 140 cancelled flights to and from the airports, particularly at Sheremetyevo International Airport – the busiest in Russia.
The drone strikes and airport closures come after Ukraine launched more than 500 drones toward Russia in a 24-hour period, leaving at least 60,000 passengers stranded.
In other parts of the war, Russia’s Defense Ministry also claimed its forces made tactical advances across multiple fronts in Ukraine, including in the Kharkiv, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, and Dnipropetrovsk regions, as part of its ongoing “special military operation.”
Russian officials said troops from its North, West, South, Center, East and Dnipro groupings inflicted heavy losses on Ukrainian brigades and destroyed key infrastructure and depots.
According to the ministry, Russian units captured the village of Belaya Gora in Donetsk and targeted Ukrainian positions with airstrikes, artillery and drones in 148 areas.
Moscow said Ukrainian forces lost more than 1,200 personnel, along with dozens of armored vehicles, artillery systems — including U.S.-made Paladins — and several electronic warfare stations.
The air campaign coincides with an intensifying intelligence war between the two countries. Ukraine said earlier this month it killed two Russian agents accused of assassinating a Ukrainian colonel in Kyiv. Russia, in turn, claimed it had detained several Ukrainian operatives and prevented sabotage attacks.
