Ukraine Launches Mass Overnight Drone Attack on Moscow as Volgograd Refinery Fire Kills Four

admin · November 13, 2026 · 8 min read

Night sky over Moscow with drone silhouettes and airport lights during Ukraine's overnight drone attack on November 13, 2026.

Ukraine launched one of its largest drone attacks of the war overnight, sending waves of unmanned aircraft toward Moscow that grounded flights at the capital’s major airports, while a separate strike on an industrial zone in the southern city of Volgograd killed four people and set a fire at a major oil refinery.

The attacks came hours after U.S. envoys Steve Witkoff and Jared Kushner met Russian President Vladimir Putin in Moscow and then flew on to Dublin to brief Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy — a diplomatic shuttle that produced talk of progress but no ceasefire, and was followed within a day by some of the heaviest exchanges of the war.

Moscow airports grounded as drones approach the capital

Dozens of Ukrainian drones attacked Moscow overnight on November 12-13, disrupting flight operations at several of the region’s major airports, according to Russian officials cited by the Kyiv Independent.

Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said Russian air defenses intercepted 105 unmanned aerial vehicles bound for the capital between 9:34 p.m. on November 12 and 2:08 a.m. on November 13. He said emergency crews had been sent to areas affected by falling drone wreckage. Later updates put the scale even higher: Sobyanin said 467 drones had headed toward the Moscow region overnight, with 144 shot down as they approached the capital.

Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency, Rosaviatsiya, announced restrictions on flight operations at Sheremetyevo, Domodedovo and Zhukovsky airports in Moscow Oblast. The agency said the airports were “accepting and dispatching flights subject to agreement with the relevant authorities” because of temporary airspace restrictions. Restrictions were also reported at Vnukovo, the capital’s fourth main airport, and were lifted by the morning, according to local reports.

The Kyiv Independent noted that it could not confirm Sobyanin’s claims at the time of publication, and that Russian officials only report on drones they say were intercepted, so the exact number of drones launched at Moscow overnight is not known.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces intercepted and destroyed 1,198 Ukrainian drones between 8 p.m. Thursday and 8 a.m. Friday across 16 regions, Moscow, Crimea and the Black Sea. The French news agency AFP described the wave as one of Kyiv’s largest of the year, exceeded only twice in 2026 — on September 20, when Russia said it downed 1,951 drones, and on October 29, when it reported 1,214.

Four killed in Volgograd as refinery burns

The deadliest impact of the overnight campaign was in Volgograd, about 400 kilometers from the Ukrainian border in southern Russia. Four people were killed and two injured in a Ukrainian drone attack on an industrial zone in the city, regional governor Andrei Bocharov said on Friday. It was the deadliest attack on the city so far in the war.

Volgograd, known as Stalingrad during World War II, is home to a large oil refinery run by Lukoil, along with many other industrial facilities. Unverified video posted on social media purported to show a large fire at the refinery, which has been attacked several times before, including last month and on May 29 and July 31. Residents reported loud explosions overnight, and local outlets reported lines forming at gas stations in the city on Friday.

There was no official confirmation that the refinery itself had been attacked, and Lukoil did not reply to a request for comment, Reuters reported. The independent Russian outlet Meduza reported that a Ukrainian drone attack caused a fire at an industrial facility in the city, killing four employees and hospitalizing two, and that Ukrainian monitoring channels identified the site as the Lukoil-owned Volgograd refinery. One monitoring channel said it was the refinery’s 13th attack since the full-scale war began.

Fires were also reported at a production site and a warehouse in Rostov-on-Don, according to the region’s governor, Yury Slyusar.

An energy war that keeps escalating

Ukraine has sharply stepped up its attacks on Russian oil refineries since the end of October, when an energy ceasefire announced by U.S. President Donald Trump failed to take hold, Reuters reported. The campaign has temporarily reduced Russia’s oil refining capacity by about 30 percent, two industry sources said this week.

The Volgograd refinery has a processing capacity of approximately 14 million tonnes of crude oil per year, or about 280,000 barrels per day, according to Lukoil’s website — roughly 5 percent of Russia’s total refining volume. Reuters reported in October that the plant had stopped processing oil after an earlier strike.

The Moscow raid fits the same pattern of pressure. Flights at all four of the capital’s main airports were grounded during an overnight attack on October 23, and on October 6 Ukraine allegedly fired about 650 drones at the Moscow region, causing a fire at a major oil facility. The previous night, Ukraine struck a weapons plant in Moscow Oblast. In the first two weeks of October alone, Moscow’s airports were closed for more than 100 hours, more than double the total for all of September.

Diplomacy and war, side by side

The overnight strikes came a day after the latest round of U.S.-brokered diplomacy. Witkoff and Kushner spent about three hours with Putin at the Kremlin on Thursday, then flew to Dublin to meet Zelenskyy. Kushner said “substantial progress” had been made and that a new trilateral round of negotiations had been agreed, with European nations set to join the next talks.

But the two days of talks in Abu Dhabi that preceded the Moscow meeting ended without a meaningful breakthrough on the core issues, including territory, and produced only an agreement in principle on a large-scale prisoner exchange. Hours after those talks wrapped up, Russia launched ballistic missiles and drones at Kyiv overnight on November 12, killing one person and injuring seven, according to the Kyiv City Military Administration.

The pattern continued this week at sea as well as in the air: Ukraine said its drones hit the Russian warship Naro-Fominsk in the Gulf of Finland, a strike Finland confirmed it had detected.

Why this matters

The overnight campaign shows that neither side is pausing the war while diplomats talk. Ukraine’s deep-strike campaign is now reaching a scale — hundreds of drones in a single night, aimed simultaneously at the capital, at oil infrastructure and at industrial sites — that forces Russia to shut down civilian aviation in its largest city on a recurring basis and to absorb repeated hits to its refining capacity.

For American readers, the stakes are direct. The attacks feed into oil markets already unsettled by the war in the Gulf, and they test whether the U.S.-led negotiating effort can produce a ceasefire while both sides keep escalating. The next round of talks, with Europeans at the table for the first time, will be the first test of whether the diplomacy can outpace the drones.

Latest developments

Flight restrictions at all four Moscow airports were lifted by Friday morning, according to local reports, with roughly 50 flights canceled or delayed in total.
The extent of the damage at the Volgograd refinery remains unknown, and Lukoil has not commented.
No damage or casualty details have been reported from the Moscow raid itself.
The next round of U.S.-brokered talks, with European participation, has been agreed but no date has been announced.

Frequently asked questions

How many drones did Ukraine launch at Moscow overnight?

The exact number is not known. Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said air defenses shot down 105 drones bound for the capital between 9:34 p.m. and 2:08 a.m., and later said 467 drones had headed toward the Moscow region. Russia’s Defense Ministry said 1,198 Ukrainian drones were intercepted across Russia overnight. The Kyiv Independent could not confirm the figures, and Russian officials report only drones they say were intercepted.

Which Moscow airports were affected?

Rosaviatsiya restricted operations at Sheremetyevo, Domodedovo and Zhukovsky airports, and restrictions were also reported at Vnukovo. Flights were grounded or operated only with special permission during the night, and restrictions were lifted by Friday morning.

What happened in Volgograd?

Four people were killed and two injured in a Ukrainian drone attack on an industrial zone in Volgograd, regional governor Andrei Bocharov said. Unverified video purported to show a large fire at the city’s Lukoil oil refinery, which has been attacked repeatedly this year, but there was no official confirmation that the refinery itself was hit.

Does this mean the peace talks have failed?

No ceasefire has been agreed, but the talks have not collapsed either. U.S. envoy Jared Kushner said “substantial progress” was made in Moscow and Dublin, and a new trilateral round with European participation has been agreed. The fighting, however, has continued — and escalated — alongside the diplomacy.

The overnight attacks underline a hard reality of this war: diplomacy and escalation are running in parallel. Until a ceasefire is actually agreed, the drones will keep flying — over Moscow, over Kyiv, and over the oil plants that fund the fighting.