Russia was plunged into an unprecedented emergency lockdown overnight after Ukraine launched an unprecedented 1,200-drone blitz deep into Vladimir Putin’s heartland. Air defences opened fire across 19 regions as sirens screamed in Moscow, grounding hundreds of commercial flights and forcing passenger jets to turn back mid-air. The massive assault – the largest drone raid of the war to date – stretched from the edge of the capital all the way to a key military chemical plant 800 miles away in Bashkortostan.
The chaos quickly turned deadly on both sides of the border as fears of wider European escalation surged. A Russian drone strike tore through a postal depot in Kharkiv, killing a 38-year-old worker and injuring four others, while Ukrainian forces managed to blow two £3million Kalibr cruise missiles out of the sky with a single US-made Hawk strike.
With skies ablaze across the region, German Bundeswehr electronic warfare teams scrambled in Lithuania for snap NATO drills, putting border defences on high alert.
Hellish Russian overnight strike on Ukraine’s Kharkiv region
A Russian drone strike on October 28, 2026, hit a postal facility in the Osnovianskyi district of Kharkiv, killing a 38-year-old man and injuring four others.
The weapon used is believed to be a Geran-3 jet-powered attack drone.
Additional overnight and follow-up drone strikes also affected the Kholodnohirskyi and Saltivskyi districts, damaging an educational facility and sparking fires across parts of the city.
(Image: Kharkiv administration/ east2west news)
Ukrainian rescuers work at the site of a Russian strike in a residential area in Kharkiv
Elsewhere in Kharkiv, rescue crews were pictured working at the site of a Russian strike in a residential area.
At least five people were injured, including one child, during the overnight drone attack in Kharkiv, according to the State Emergency Service report.
(Image: SERGEY KOZLOV/EPA/Shutterstock)
