A firefighter works at the site of a business centre hit by a Russian drone strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine in Kyiv, Ukraine, September 23, 2026.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Plumes of smoke rise from fires (right) at an oil refinery following what the authorities say is a Ukrainian drone strike in the course of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, in Moscow, Russia on September, 20, 2026.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

A voter casts her ballot at a polling station on the first day of Russia’s parliamentary election in Vladivostok, Russia, September 18, 2026.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Russian President Vladimir Putin. File.
| Photo Credit: AP

Russian forces on Friday (August 28, 2026) resumed their drone barrage of Ukraine’s Kyiv region, hitting more than a dozen apartment buildings and storage depots in a second straight day of aerial attacks, officials said.

Prolonged air raids in Kyiv on Thursday (August 27) essentially locked down the Ukrainian capital for 15 hours, the Foreign Ministry said, choking the economy and severely disrupting civilian life more than 4½ years after Russia’s full-scale invasion of its neighbour. Even longer alerts are a daily reality in regions closer to the front line, the Ministry said.

Russian drone and missile attacks are also aiming at the power grid in what Ukrainian officials say is an annual campaign to “weaponise winter.” In Ukraine’s southern Kherson region on the Black Sea, where glide bombs a day earlier forced a combined heat and power plant to shut down, officials predicted a winter of extended outages and told people to move elsewhere if they could.

Russian strikes in the Kyiv region damaged 14 warehouses, 16 private houses, three apartment buildings and 16 vehicles, Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv regional military administration, said Friday (August 28).

A second drone hit one location after emergency crews were deployed, the State Emergency Service said, in what is termed by the military as a “double tap” that targets first responders.

The attacks killed one person and wounded two others, according to officials.

The Russian Defense Ministry said that its forces overnight struck a warehouse in the Kyiv region that stores Ukraine’s Flamingo cruise missiles and fuel for rocket boosters.

Ukrainian officials didn’t immediately confirm the Russian claim, and The Associated Press couldn’t verify it. Recent strikes have damaged numerous warehouses across Kyiv and the wider region, including facilities storing books, food and other consumer goods.

The attacks stretched into daylight hours, and Tkachenko urged residents to stay in safe locations and heed air raid alerts.

Russia is launching small numbers of fast-moving jet-powered drones in waves in an attempt to paralyze the capital, according to Andrii Kovalenko, head of Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation at the National Security and Defense Council.

“The goal is to exhaust air defenses and the population,” he said on social media on Friday (August 28).

Kyiv region authorities said that air quality worsened because of the attacks and warned people in some areas to keep their windows closed and limit their time outdoors.

Four Russian glide bombs destroyed a sorting centre belonging to the postal service Nova Poshta in the northern Sumy region, and a drone smashed one of its depots in the Kyiv region, the company said.

In the southern Kherson region, which is about 70% under Russian control, officials urged tens of thousands of residents to move to safer regions because of the possibility of prolonged power and heating outages this winter.

“Kherson may be without electricity and heat not for hours or days, but for a long time. And we need to prepare for this now,” said Oleksandr Prokudin, head of the Kherson regional military administration, in a social media post late on Thursday (August 27).

Russia has intensified attacks on critical infrastructure in the region, with 170 glide bombs dropped on the Kherson region since July 1 — more than in the first six months of the year, Prokudin said.

Russia has also launched more than 1,700 attack drones over the past two months, increasingly using jet-powered Shahed and Gerbera drones against critical infrastructure, he said, and attacks by smaller drones rose to 6,500 in the past week alone.

Authorities will offer help with evacuation, transportation, resettlement and social support for those who decide to leave, he said.

Russia fired 164 drones at Ukraine overnight, Ukraine’s air force said. It didn’t mention missiles, which are usually part of Russia’s aerial attacks.

A 61-year-old man was killed, and seven other people were wounded Friday (August 28) in a Russian glide bomb attack on the northern Sumy region, said Oleh Hryhorov, head of the Sumy regional military administration.

The Russian Defence Ministry said that its air defences overnight shot down 512 Ukrainian drones over 18 Russian regions, as well as over the illegally annexed Crimean Peninsula and the waters of the Black Sea.

Ukrainian forces struck the Slavneft-YANOS refinery in Russia’s Yaroslavl region overnight, causing a fire, Ukraine’s General Staff said, as Ukraine continued its campaign against the Russian oil sector.

A fire broke out at the site, which is around 1,000 kilometres (600 miles) from the border with Ukraine, the General Staff said. The plant produces gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel, fuel oil, lubricants and other petroleum products, it added.

A Ukrainian drone attack on Friday (August 28) morning in the Yaroslavl region killed one person and wounded 27 other people, Gov. Mikhail Yevrayev said. Ten of those were wounded when drone debris fell on a bus, he said.

He said that unspecified “industrial infrastructure,” residential areas and unidentified retail facilities were hit.

In the Moscow region that surrounds but doesn’t include the Russian capital, a drone hit a supermarket, damaging it and shattering windows in a nearby outpatient clinic, Gov. Andrei Vorobyov said on Telegram.

In the port city of Sevastopol in Crimea, a five-story residential building suffered significant damage from a drone, according to the Russian-installed Governor of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhayev. Four people were wounded, he said. He posted images of a charred building with windows and balconies knocked out.

Firefighters gather at the side of a food warehouse hit by a Russian missile strike, amid Russia’s attack on Ukraine, in Kyiv region, Ukraine on August 20, 2026.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Ukrainian forces staged one of their biggest drone attacks on Russia since Moscow’s invasion more than four years ago, firing almost 800 drones just two days after launching a similar salvo, officials said Tuesday (August 18, 2026).

Meanwhile, a Russian missile strike on a village in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region killed at least 10 people and wounded eight others as the barrage demolished homes, officials said Tuesday (August 18, 2026).

The warring countries are locked in an escalating duel of long-range aerial strikes. Fighting on the roughly 1,250-kilometre (780-mile) front line in eastern and southern Ukraine is restricted by large numbers of drones and ground robots threatening troop movements, and neither side is making significant battlefield progress, analysts say.

Russia’s Putin resists pressure for peace talks

Over the past year Ukraine has devised and deployed domestically produced long-range drones for strikes deep inside Russia. Its drone technology has impressed governments and defence manufacturers around the world.

Kyiv officials aim to make the Russian public feel the war’s consequences and pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin into negotiating a peace settlement. Putin has so far shown no sign he intends to stop the invasion.

“Putin continues to drag out the war instead of accepting Ukraine’s realistic ceasefire proposals and ending the bloodshed,” Ukrainian Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said in a post on X.

Russian air defences overnight intercepted 791 Ukrainian drones over a number of Russian regions, as well as annexed Crimea and the Black and the Azov seas, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said, in what was the second-largest drone attack since January 2025, according to an Associated Press tally.

More than 600 Ukrainian drones flew toward the Moscow region, where 180 were shot down, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said. He didn’t provide further details.

Officials reported no deaths or major damage. Ukraine has increasingly launched swarms of hundreds of drones in an attempt to overwhelm Russian air defenses.

In the Moscow region that surrounds but doesn’t include the Russian capital, three people were wounded, Gov Andrei Vorobyov said.

Three people were also wounded in the Ryazan region adjacent to the Moscow region where three private houses were damaged by the attack, Gov. Pavel Malkov said.

The overnight attack started a fire at a warehouse of Wildberries, Russia’s biggest online retailer, in an industrial zone. Ukraine has repeatedly targeted the company’s depots, which it says help supply the Russian military.

Wildberries said its facility sustained “insignificant damage.” Russian TV doesn’t report news of the attack

Coverage of the attack in state and Kremlin-backed Russian media was mostly muted, as is often the case.

Russia’s main television channels — state-run Russia 1 and Channel One — did not mention the attack at all in their morning news bulletins.

But Russian state news agency RIA Novosti featured it among the main news on its website’s homepage, describing it as “one of the most large-scale attacks on Moscow since the beginning of the summer.” State newspaper Rossiyskaya Gazeta on its website prominently featured a roundup of what Moscow region Gov. Andrei Vorobyov reported about the attack on the area, describing it as “massive” in the headline. Pro-Kremlin tabloid MK featured a news brief about the attack on its home page.

Ukraine’s Zelenskyy accuses Russia of a ‘brutal attack’ on civilians

A Russian missile strike on the village of Pechenihy in Ukraine’s Kharkiv region killed 10 civilians, according to preliminary information, said Oleh Syniehubov, head of the Kharkiv regional military administration.

Another 17 people were wounded, he said. Mr. Zelenskyy called it “a brutal attack” that damaged 10 homes, a cafe, a post office, a store and at least seven vehicles, according to Syniehubov.

“We will definitely respond to this Russian strike,” Mr. Zelenskyy said on social media.

Also, three people were killed and three others were wounded over the past day in Russian attacks on Ukraine’s Sumy region, including drone strikes and an explosive device blast, Ukraine’s National Police said.

U.K. vows continued Ukraine support, despite Moscow’s threats

The U.K. Defence Ministry said Tuesday that it won’t budge from its military support for Kyiv, after Russia said that Ukraine’s reported use of British drones for attacks on Russian soil would bring unidentified consequences for London.

“Britain stands shoulder to shoulder with Ukraine, and we are committed to providing the equipment Ukraine needs to defend itself against Putin’s illegal invasion,” a British defense spokesperson said.

British newspaper The Sunday Times reported that two U.K. companies made drones used by Ukraine to hit Russia.

Following the report, the Russian embassy in the U.K. said in a statement that “London’s actions will inevitably carry consequences.”

Published – August 18, 2026 05:10 pm IST

Smoke rises from an oil refinery after what authorities said was a Ukrainian drone attack, in the course of the Russia-Ukraine conflict, in Nizhnekamsk, Tatarstan Region, Russia, on August 10, 2026,
| Photo Credit: Reuters

File image for representation
| Photo Credit: AP

A Nova Poshta postal warehouse is destroyed following Russian air attack on the outskirts of Kharkiv, Ukraine, Sunday, Aug. 2, 2026.
| Photo Credit: AP