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Ukraine targets Moscow with 200 drones in large-scale attack, mayor says

This handout photograph taken and released by the State Emergency Service of Ukraine on July 16, 2026, shows Ukrainian firefighters working to extinguish a fire at the site of a Russian air attack in Kyiv. (Handout/State Emergency Service of Ukrai)

(LONDON) — At least 200 Ukrainian drones were launched toward Moscow overnight into Thursday morning, the city’s Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said, as Kyiv continued its nightly long-range strike campaign deep into Russia.

From Wednesday evening until 9 a.m. local time on Thursday, “More than 200 drones were flying towards the Moscow region. Most of them were neutralized by air defense systems at a distance,” Sobyanin wrote in a post to Telegram. Ten drones “were destroyed as they approached Moscow,” the mayor said.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces downed at least 375 Ukrainian drones overnight. The ministry said in a post to Telegram that drones were intercepted over 18 Russian regions — including Moscow — as well as Crimea, the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov.

Ukraine has been significantly expanding its drone campaign — referred to in Kyiv as “long-range sanctions” — in recent months, targeting major Russian cities, Russian oil infrastructure, military and logistics targets.

Ukraine has been significantly expanding its drone campaign — referred to in Kyiv as “long-range sanctions” — in recent months, targeting major Russian cities, Russian oil infrastructure, military and logistics targets.

The Russian Defense Ministry publishes only the number of Ukrainian drones and other projectiles it claims to have intercepted. Sobyanin releases real time statements when Ukrainian drones are reported shot down while heading toward the capital.

ABC News cannot independently verify the figures from either the ministry or the mayor. But the increasing scale and rate of such reports could be seen as indicative of Ukraine’s growing ability and willingness to target sites within Russia.

So far this year, Sobyanin has reported the downing of 1,420 Ukrainian drones on approach to Moscow, according to his Telegram posts, collated and analyzed by ABC News. Across all of 2025, Sobyanin only reported the downing of 734 Ukrainian drones near the city.

More than four years after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has made clear Kyiv’s intentions to return the war back to Russian soil. Key targets have included Moscow and the so-called “second capital” St. Petersburg.

“Our responses to Russia’s prolonging of the war and strikes on our cities and communities are completely fair,” Zelenskyy wrote on Telegram in May. “The Moscow region has Russia’s densest concentration of air defenses. But we are getting through,” he added.

Ukraine’s Wednesday night attacks also reportedly targeted the Engels-2 airbase in Saratov — a key hub for Russian long-range aviation, including strategic bombers. Andriy Kovalenko, the head of the Counter-Disinformation Center operating as part of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said in a post to Telegram, “Engels is on fire.”

Russia’s federal air transport agency, Rosaviatsiya, meanwhile, announced that temporary flight restrictions were introduced at Saratov airport during the overnight attacks. Restrictions were also put in place at airports in Nizhny Novgorod, Penza, Samara, Ivanovo, Yaroslavl, Cherepovets and Gelendzhik.

Flights operating from all four of Moscow’s international airports were also put under temporary flight restrictions overnight, Rosaviatsiya said.

Russia continued its own long-range strike campaign against Ukraine. Ukraine’s air force said in a post to Telegram that Russia launched 18 missiles and 146 drones into the country overnight into Thursday morning, of which 12 missiles and 129 drones were intercepted, suppressed or failed to reach their targets.

Six missiles and 16 drones impacted across 15 locations, the air force said.

Zelenskyy said in a post to Telegram that at least two people were killed by a Russian missile strike in Kyiv, with five other people injured. Other targeted regions included Kharkiv, Sumy, Zaporizhzhia, Vinnytsia, Zhytomyr, Mykolaiv and Donetsk, Zelenskyy said.

“Moscow is relying on terror through ballistic missiles and continues its attacks,” Zelenskyy wrote.

Copyright © 2026, ABC Audio. All rights reserved.

Conspiracies around Nolan Wells’ death have led to threats against those he was with that day, attorneys say

By CNN
(CNN) — On July 4, a group of friends boarded boats and set out from Ocean Springs, Mississippi, to celebrate the holiday on nearby Horn Island.It was a trip many had been looking forward to all year, their attorneys would later tell CNN. But it would end in tragedy after Nolan Wells never made it home.In the weeks since Wells’ body was discovered along the shoreline of the barrier island, questions around his manner of death have fueled conjecture and fractured a once tight-knit community.Attorneys representing Warren Hudson, Jax Pitalo and Morgan Seymour say despite cooperating with investigators, their clients have effectively become pariahs in their hometown and have been subjected to death threats and defamation.And, they said, the allegations they were somehow involved in their friend’s death have made it even harder as they try to find ways to grieve the young man they’ve known since middle school.“The biggest tragedy of this entire thing is that Nolan unfortunately lost his life and nobody knows definitively what happened,” their attorney, Tyler Cox, said, adding all three of his clients have been questioned by authorities in the case.“These guys haven’t been able to mourn the loss of their friend and brother Nolan Wells,” Cox told CNN Wednesday.“They left the island at 4:30 pm … So, we don’t know what happened to Nolan after 4:30,” he said. “We want to know just as much as anybody.”A tow call ignites controversyCox estimates there were hundreds of boats and thousands of people on the island that day. Wells and his friends arrived just before 11 am, he said.The last time Warren Hudson saw Wells was around 3 pm, his attorneys say.“They had this little comedic moment because at the time Nolan was kind of holding and cradling a girl that he had met on the island,” Cox said. “You know him being one of Nolan’s best friends, Warren kind of gave him kind of a chuckle, like, ‘Oh, I see you with this girl.’ You know, ‘Hope everything goes well for you.’”But an hour later, the attorneys told CNN, the group began noticing problems with the bilge pump on one of their boats, the Triton. The water in the hull was rising so quickly it almost covered the battery, and Cox said his clients began to panic and shout to their friends it was time to leave.What happened next has become the subject of conspiracy and scrutiny.Cox said there has been an assumption Wells was left “on this deserted, remote island with no access to a phone or no access to anyone else to help him.”But he was far from alone, the attorney said – and Wells was not the only person who didn’t make the return trip with the group of friends.“That’s just how it is here. You can always find another ride off the island, and again, there were 2,000 other people there, so he wasn’t left alone by any means,” Cox said.He also acknowledged many people find it suspicious his clients were in possession of Wells’ phone, but, he said, it’s common practice to drop anchor 50 feet offshore and swim to the island.“I don’t know anything more corrosive to a cell phone than salt water,” he said. “When they left, not only was Nolan’s phone on the boat, so was five other people’s … and everyone collected the phones after” they got back.Everyone, of course, except for Nolan. A Wells family friend later tracked the device to his friend’s home, and Elmore Wonsley, Nolan’s father, has said he arrived later in the night to collect his son’s car and keys.Edward Paltzik, a defamation attorney who also represents the three men, said in recent days edited audio of the emergency tow call his clients made that day has turned a tragic case into a circus.“The Sea Tow call — and the hundreds of versions of it now circulating — is a red herring. It’s distracting people from what matters,” Paltzik said.At the end of the day, he added, any audio portraying his clients in a false light is defamatory, and they plan to pursue all legal claims.A video purporting to contain audio of the Triton’s call has gone viral after the creator who posted it claimed to have cleaned up the background noise and allegedly revealed incriminating statements.CNN has obtained and reviewed the same audio but found it to be inconclusive.“We’re winnowing it down to the worst of the worst – the worst of the worst offenders who have said the worst things, who have the largest platforms, who have caused the most damage,” Paltzik said. “It’s going to be a lengthy process.”A tragedy compounded by grief and threatsIn the weeks since the case became national news, the attorneys say their clients have been subjected to a barrage of threats – both at home and online.“Some of them can’t even go back to school because of the threats. Their families have had threats. Some of them can’t even go home,” Cox said.Two of the men were accosted at a local restaurant, and they’ve also been refused service in town, Cox said. Some of the alleged threats were deemed serious enough three people were charged with crimes, The Associated Press reported. The suspects — who allegedly threatened witnesses and officials connected to the investigation — do not appear to have any connection to the families in Mississippi.But Cox stressed his clients only have two feelings toward Nolan Wells’ family: Empathy and sympathy.“If there’s anybody out there that is targeting or harassing the Wells/Wonsley family, that needs to stop immediately and they need to apologize for doing it,” Paltzik said.“I want to be clear. It’s not them versus us. Never has been, and I’ll tell you, never will be.”Cox rejected any claims his clients were somehow motivated to treat Wells differently because of his race.“All the old people in Mississippi may have thought something a long time ago, but not these young men,” he said. “I think they completely regret even going out to the island that day.”But, despite all the rumors and conspiracies, Paltzik said two things can be true:“Nolan’s death is an incomprehensible tragedy – incomprehensible,” he said. “But for us to be where we are today – where we have other folks receiving death threats, other folks receiving hate, and folks being defamed – I think that magnifies the tragedy.”The-CNN-Wire™ & © 2026 Cable News Network, Inc., a Warner Bros. Discovery Company. All rights reserved.
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