Ukraine unleashed a major drone attack across Russia overnight, throwing Moscow’s airports into chaos just hours after CIA Director John Ratcliffe left the capital following a secretive visit.
Russian air defenses shot down at least 10 drones heading toward Moscow in the early hours of Wednesday, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Telegram.
“Emergency services specialists are working at the crash site of the debris,” Sobyanin said.
The overnight barrage disrupted air travel nationwide. As Ukrainian drones approached the capital, Russia’s federal aviation agency Rosaviatsiya temporarily restricted operations at three of Moscow’s four international airports, Domodedovo, Zhukovsky and Vnukovo.
Similar restrictions were imposed at airports in Kaluga, Tambov, Penza, Saratov, Saransk, Cheboksary, Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, and Yaroslavl, according to Rosaviatsiya.
The attacks came just hours after Ratcliffe departed Vnukovo following an unexpected visit to Moscow.
The CIA director arrived aboard a U.S. military C-17 Globemaster III on Tuesday morning after the aircraft flew from Joint Base Andrews in Maryland. The plane departed Moscow about eight-and-a-half hours later, The Washington Post reported, citing tracking data from Flightradar24.
Ukraine had agreed to a request from President Donald Trump to refrain from long-range strikes on Moscow during Ratcliffe’s visit, the Financial Times reported.
The Kremlin said Wednesday that Ratcliffe held talks with Russian intelligence officials but did not meet Russian President Vladimir Putin. Putin was briefed on the talks, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said.
“Contact with Putin was not planned,” Peskov told Kremlin-controlled news agency Tass. He separately said Ratcliffe’s trip involved “contacts via the security services,” while declining to provide further details.
“I can tell you that there have been no meetings with the Russian president. Naturally, President Putin is kept informed of everything without delay,” Peskov said.
The Daily Beast has contacted the White House for comment.
Russia’s Defense Ministry claimed that its forces intercepted 426 Ukrainian drones overnight across 15 Russian regions and Crimea, the Ukrainian peninsula illegally annexed by Putin in 2014.
In Kotovsk, in the Tambov region, a strike sparked a massive fire at a Wildberries e-commerce logistics center. Regional governor Yevgeny Pervyshov said the blaze spread across more than 100,000 square meters.
Another major attack targeted the Nizhny Novgorod region, where governor Gleb Nikitin said Russian defenses struck down more than 40 Ukrainian drones.
Ukraine, meanwhile, said Russia launched 162 drones overnight, of which its air defenses repelled 134.
Ratcliffe’s visit comes more than four years after Putin launched Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine. The grinding war has shown no sign of ending, while Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian oil refineries have sparked a deepening fuel crisis in the country.
