Ukraine has launched a series of drone strikes deep inside Russian territory, targeting critical energy infrastructure in what officials describe as the farthest-reaching attacks of the war so far. The most significant strike hit Novy Urengoy, a city in the Yamalo-Nenets Autonomous District of western Siberia — located roughly 2,800 kilometres from the Ukrainian border — which is widely known as Russia's "gas capital" due to its central role in the country's natural gas production. A separate wave of strikes also hit strategic gas and oil installations in the Yamalo-Nenets and Khanty-Mansiysk regions, where Russia extracts more than 40 percent of its oil, as well as a Caspian Sea port in Dagestan, a republic in Russia's far south.
The regional governor of Yamalo-Nenets confirmed the attack on Novy Urengoy, saying air defences had intercepted the drone but that falling debris had caused fires. He reported no casualties and urged residents to remain calm. Ukraine officially acknowledged the strikes, with President Volodymyr Zelensky calling the operation on social media a "completely justified" attack delivered "in a way the enemy truly feels." According to El País, Ukrainian drones struck targets more than 3,000 kilometres from Ukraine in the broader operation — marking a new threshold for Ukrainian long-range capability.
The strikes are part of a sustained Ukrainian campaign against Russian energy and industrial infrastructure. Ukraine previously attacked the Siberian city of Omsk, some 2,500 kilometres away, in July. Repeated Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian oil refineries have already contributed to significant fuel shortages inside Russia. Zelensky last week warned international airlines to avoid Russian airspace, saying the volume of Ukrainian drones now in operation poses a collision risk to civilian aircraft.
The same night, Russia launched its own attacks on Ukraine. One person was killed and seven wounded in Kyiv, while a shopping centre in Sumy was struck, killing two and injuring fourteen. Two more people died in Mykolayiv. Russian drones also hit a border crossing between Ukraine and Moldova — a small landlocked country bordering southwestern Ukraine — killing two people and wounding three, prompting Moldova's prime minister to condemn the strike and call for stronger air defence support for Ukraine. Separately, Norwegian Prime Minister Jonas Gahr Støre revealed that a drone came close to striking the aircraft carrying Zelensky as he departed Moldova, though the origin and type of the drone remain unclear.
The escalating range of Ukrainian strikes signals a deliberate effort to bring economic and psychological pressure to bear on Russian territory far from the front lines. Zelensky, who attended the funeral of Norwegian King Harald V and held talks on military cooperation in Oslo, urged the international community to increase pressure on Moscow, writing that the global response to near-daily Russian attacks "has unfortunately been insufficient."