MOSCOW – Ukraine attacked Moscow with at least 34 drones on Sunday, the biggest drone strike in the Russian capital since the start of the war in 2022, forcing flights to be diverted from three of the city’s main airports and injuring at least five people.

Russia’s air defenses destroyed another 50 drones over other regions in western Russia on Sunday, the defense ministry said.

“An attempt by the Kiev regime to carry out a terrorist attack with aircraft-type drones on the territory of the Russian Federation was thwarted,” the ministry said.

Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency said Domodedovo, Sheremetyevo and Zhukovsky airports diverted at least 36 flights but later resumed operations. Five people were injured in the Moscow region, the Ministry of Defense announced.

Moscow and the surrounding region, with a population of at least 21 million inhabitants, is one of the largest metropolitan areas in Europe, next to Istanbul.

For its part, Russia launched a record 145 drones overnight, Ukraine said. Kiev said its air defenses shot down 62 of them. Ukraine also said it attacked an arsenal in Russia’s Bryansk region, which reported 14 drones shot down in the region.

Unverified video posted on Russian Telegram channels showed drones buzzing along the horizon.

The 2 1/2 year old war in Ukraine is entering what some officials say could be its final act after Moscow’s forces advanced at their fastest pace since the war began and Donald Trump was elected the 47th president of the United States.

Trump, who takes office in January, said during the campaign that he could bring peace to Ukraine within 24 hours, but offered few details on how he would try to do so.

When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskii called Trump to congratulate him on his presidential election victory, the Tesla CEO and Trump supporter Elon Musk joined the callaccording to media reports. Musk owns SpaceX, which provides Starlink satellite communications services that are vital to Ukraine’s defense effort.

“Shadows” from Moscow

Kiev itself repeated target mass drone strikes on the part of Russian forces, has sought to retaliate against its much larger eastern neighbor with repeated drone strikes against Russia’s oil refineries, airfields and even strategic early warning radar stations.

While the 1,000 km (620 mi) front largely resembled the trench and artillery warfare of World War I for much of the war, one of the greatest innovations of the conflict was drone warfare.

Moscow and Kiev have sought to buy and develop new drones, deploy them in innovative ways, and seek new ways to destroy them — from using farmers’ rifles to advanced electronic jamming systems.

Russia has developed a series of electronic “umbrellas” over Moscow, with additional advanced internal layers over strategic buildings and a complex air defense network to shoot down drones before they reach the Kremlin in the heart of the capital.

Both sides have turned cheap commercial drones into deadly weapons while ramping up their own production. Soldiers on both sides have reported a visceral fear of drones — and both sides have used gruesome video footage of fatal drone strikes in propaganda.

Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has sought to insulate Moscow from the noisy rigors of war, has called Ukrainian drone strikes targeting civilian infrastructure such as nuclear power plants “terrorism” and vowed a response.

Moscow, by far Russia’s wealthiest city, had a boom during the war, fueled by the biggest explosion in defense spending since the Cold War.

There was no sign of panic on the Moscow boulevards. Muscovites walked their dogs as the bells of onion-domed Russian Orthodox churches rang out across the capital.