A wave of almost 600 Ukrainian drones attacked Russia overnight, killing four people, authorities said on Sunday, as Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky called the barrage an "entirely justified" retribution for Moscow's own pummelling of Ukraine.

Air defences shot down 556 drones overnight across the country, Russia's defence ministry said, with another 30 drones intercepted after dawn in one of the largest Ukrainian barrages of the ongoing conflict so far.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Kyiv's attack on Russia – days after a massive drone and missile bombardment of the Ukrainian capital killed at least 24 people – was "entirely justified".

"Our responses to Russia's prolongation of the war and its attacks on our cities and communities are entirely justified. This time, Ukrainian long-range sanctions reached the Moscow region, and we are clearly telling the Russians: their state must end its war."

In Russia's capital region, "a woman was killed as a result of a UAV hitting a private house," governor Andrey Vorobyov posted on Telegram, adding that the early morning attack also claimed the lives of two men.

Within the capital, one of the strikes wounded construction workers at a job site near an oil and gas refinery, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said. In the Belgorod region which borders Ukraine, one man was killed overnight in a drone attack on a lorry, regional authorities said.

The latest attack on Sunday hit "the Moscow Oil Refinery, the Solnechnogorsk oil depot, and several microelectronics manufacturing facilities for the first time", Ukraine's defence ministry said on social media.

Ukraine's General Staff said that among the targets hit was a plant in the Moscow region "which specialises in the production of high-tech products and microchips for high-precision weapons".

The Ukrainian air force said meanwhile it had intercepted 279 Russian drones out of a total of 287 launched.

The war has cost hundreds of thousands of lives and forced millions to flee their homes, making it Europe's deadliest conflict since World War II. (AFP)



Edited by Cecil Wong