Massive Air Raid on Russia
Earlier today Ukraine launched drone and missile attacks on Russian infrastructure around the Moscow region. Moscow is the most heavily defended part of Russia with a "layered" defence designed to stop anything incoming. Ukraine has been "shaping" the battlefield for a couple of months by targeting anti aircraft facilities.
Targeted were an oil refinery and an oil transhipment center, electronics factories making crucial parts for drones, an engineering company designing drones, rockets, and cruise missiles.
The refinery was key, and is heavily defended.
Photos and vids here
Ukraine has carried out a major air raid on Moscow, possibly the largest attack since the start of the full-scale invasion.
Despite Russia’s layered air defenses, Ukrainian forces reportedly struck several targets across the Moscow region.
Russia is selling oil at a much higher price but is selling much less of it due to attacks on it's infrastructure.
Ukraine seems to be doing better while the world (Trump) is more interested in Iran and China. Russia is unable to make advances due to drones creating a 20 and 30 km deep zone where they strike with impunity. Ukraine doesn't want to expend lives going on the offensive and Russia only loses lives to drones without making any progress.
It was just last week that the President of Ukraine gave Russia permission to stage its victory day parade unmolested.
Comments
Could you give a link
to your source for us?
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
@on the cusp https://www.npr.org/2026
https://www.npr.org/2026/05/17/nx-s1-5824987/ukrainian-drone-strikes-on-...
Sorry thought I'd done so. Just saw this come up on my google news feed this morning and it's on all major outlets. A google search will bring the same thing up for you from whatever source you like.
AI
On May 17, 2026, Ukraine launched one of its largest drone assaults of the war, targeting several Russian regions, including Moscow. Russian officials reported intercepting over 550 drones, with some reports suggesting over 1,000 drones were shot down or jammed within 24 hours.
Key Details of the Attacks (May 17-18, 2026)
:Casualties: At least four people were killed in Russia, with three deaths reported near Moscow and one in the Belgorod region.
Moscow Targets: Over 120 drones were reported near Moscow, causing damage to residential buildings, a major fire in eastern Moscow, and disrupting operations at Moscow's Sheremetyevo Airport.
Energy Infrastructure: Ukrainian drones targeted oil refineries and energy infrastructure, aiming to disrupt fuel supplies.
Ukrainian Response: President Volodymyr Zelensky described the strikes as an "entirely justified" response to Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities, noting they were meant to bring the war home to Russia.
The attacks come amid intense, renewed fighting, with both sides conducting large-scale aerial assaults on each other's territory.
ban nock,
As a reader who strongly supports the Russian side in this conflict, I want to respond to you in the hope that you will respond to me.
We can’t win a war with Russia, and Russia can’t win a war with us. We can only both lose.
The crazies in our current leadership suggest that we can win a war with Russia. The word they use is “prevail.” They know that means a lot of the United States would be destroyed, but for them that’s OK. The Russian government, as I understand it from watching Putin’s interviews with Oliver Stone, agrees with Putin, who said, “I believe no one would survive such a war.”
So it seems even less likely that Ukraine could win a war with Russia, because if the Russian government decided to flatten Ukraine, it could. And Ukraine could not flatten Russia. I guess what we’re supposed to understand from the massive drone strikes on Russia’s armaments factories and oil refineries is that Ukraine is just trying to unsettle Russia enough to get them to stop the war. Or it’s to frighten and hurt the Russian people enough to get them to change their regime, the underlying goal of the RAND strategic plan for the war in Ukraine. Our mainstream media suggest this is working. I read it every day in Yahoo News.
I support the Russian position because I have read that the CIA has funded fascist forces in Ukraine since the end of WWII. I suspect we have supported fascist forces in Ukraine since before WWII because I know Allen Dulles was an attorney for the companies that armed Germany both before and for the duration of WWII. So while it shocks and horrifies me, it doesn’t surprise me that our State Dept. has supported Neo-nazi private armies in Ukraine leading up to the current war. Congress voted to STOP funding, arming, and training the Azov battalion and other neo-nazi forces in 2018, but it has continued to do so in arrangements with Ukraine.
Private armies are part of the military reality in Ukraine and may be the force behind attacks on Russia. But because they are accountable to no one, we cannot know if they are supportive of Ukraine or just supportive of quagmire, a life support for the military industrial complex. Either way, they are a new rise of fascism in Europe. You may not be alarmed by their existence or their self-published commission of atrocities, but the people of Ukraine, the people of the Donbas, the people of Crimea and the people of Russia are alarmed. Understandably.
What’s most frightening is that attacks on Russia may be meant to bait Russia into attacking armaments factories in Europe, so that German nukes could be launched on Russia in response. There is a contingent in our crazed leadership that clearly appears to want this outcome. I respect you, ban nock, for staying with this community and for opening these subjects for discussion, but I wonder why this doesn’t concern you.
@Linda Wood I've never been a big fan
I've never been a big fan of Yahoo News, just saying. I'd also skip place that are lots of supposition to keep you there for the clicks.
With Russian mil bloggers and international think tanks there is quite a bit of double checking of sources. I think the Russian military and western open source intelligence are both getting fairly accurate information. There are simply too many ways of checking sources.
Predicting the future is nowhere near as accurate as correctly reporting the present. Do both sides agree on a set of facts? If not they might not be facts.
I think it's widely recognised that Russia invaded Ukraine for instance. We also know roughly where the front lines are and what the losses of men and materials are on both sides. The two belligerents don't report these things but there are other ways of estimating and double checking estimates even more accurately as time goes on.
For instance the drone strikes on the refinery last weekend. Or the airport etc. No one disputes those things happened. Mostly I disregard and don't even bother disputing all propaganda. I try to only post things that most anyone can confirm with a couple of clicks.
What I hear you saying here,
is that the reports of massive Ukrainian attacks on Russian infrastructure are likely correct and acknowledged by both sides. I agree.
I assumed that because you seem supportive of Ukraine and critical of Russia, the massive attacks are a good thing. If that's true, I disagree.
I agree with you about Yahoo News. You described it well by saying it posts a lot of "supposition," but its recent articles assert that Ukraine is doing well by attacking Russia. Well in what sense? From your dismissal of Yahoo News, I assume you feel Ukraine is NOT doing well or that I should disregard their assertions.
Why did you post the news that Ukraine is attacking Russia massively? To assert that Ukraine is closer to winning the war, closer to frustrating Putin enough that he ends the war, closer to causing the Russian people to remove Putin from office so as to end the war? I think there are people in this forum who could outline for you that whoever might replace Putin in Russia would flatten Ukraine or hit German arms factories just to make the point.
I agree with you that Russia invaded Ukraine. But when you or others state that, it’s as if nothing happened that could have caused it. Nothing. The premise seems to be that everything was lovely in Ukraine, there was peace, justice, prosperity, democracy, and that OUT OF THE BLUE Russia invaded Ukraine.
You know that’s untrue. There was a civil war involving 5 private Neo-nazi armies, destruction of eastern Ukrainian villages and cities, atrocities posted on the internet, a violent takeover of the government by thugs, and perfidy by the Ukrainian government after signing the Minsk Agreements. And there was insistence by NATO that Ukraine would become a member, which would mean having nuclear weapons. The only thing worse than Nazis for the Russians would be Nazis with nukes.
You know it’s acknowledged that in spite of its being the second largest country in Europe, with enormous agricultural and mineral resources and a skilled workforce, Ukraine was the second poorest, and since the war is now the poorest, country in Europe. Why? The consensus is that it is the most corrupt country in Europe. You know that its ingrained corruption is the excuse NATO uses for not bringing Ukraine into its forces. How is the provision of nuclear weapons to a country whose Military and Security forces are led by Neo-Nazis not a threat to Russia and for that matter to Europe?
ban nock, help me understand your point about the increased attacks on Russia.
That is a very kindly take down
.
This situation does not require harshness . I wish
I could be as understanding as you are. I find this poster
to be a muck raker in general. As you pointed out - for
what reason? Ah well, such as it is. All are welcome here.
Zionism is a social disease
ban nock,
NPR is a Deep State asset.
Finland joining NATO triggered this SMO. Putin warned them, and they ignored him at their peril.
"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981
This type of foolery
...was regarded as insane during the cold war. Direct attacks upon Russian targets were basically forbidden. Gee, I wonder why?
I guess Europeans forget the two world wars. But now westerners are fixated on their game theories of proxy wars, and "escalation dominance." Ritter believes this is crazy brinkmanship.
This debate between Ritter and Ray is a friendly and informative one. Ray thinks Putin will exercise restraint. Scott thinks all hell is likely to break loose. It's a very long video but hearing two veteran intel people with different views on this crisis (and that's what it is) was worth it.
THE WORLD THIS WEEK - Ritter & McGovern: HITTING A CHINESE WALL
I always keep in mind Ellsberg's standard published in his book, Doomsday Machine, that any risk of nuclear war is unacceptable. A one out of a thousand chance of nuclear war is unacceptable. Some people don't seem to get this, which is so frightening.
It's disturbing that the risk isn't limited to just the Ukraine-Russia conflict which is expanding in a very tangible way, but also in the middle east and elsewhere in open seas.
Postol has a new video presentation up with Glenn Diesen on the potential of Iran to make nuclear weapons in relatively short order.
But the immediate threat of nuclear war comes from proliferation that has already happened. It comes from aggression that has already occurred and is ongoing.
己所不欲，勿施于人。
more glue and gold paint over
more glue and gold paint over here please, Humphrey
Penetrating 3 of the 4 defencive rings around Moscow
Returning to its Native Harbour: Ukraine Brings the War to Moscow (Again)
Ukraine just conducted a mass drone attack on the Russian capital, employing over 500 drones to penetrate 3 of the 4 air defence rings around Moscow. What does this mean for the war's trajectory?
Mick Ryan
May 19
Smoke over Moscow from Ukraine’s weekend strike. Image: @ZelenskyyUa
The war is quite predictably returning to its “native harbor,” and this is a clear signal that one should not pick a fight with Ukraine or wage an unjust war of conquest against another people. President Zelenskyy, 18 May 2026.
In the early hours of 17 May 2026, Moscow residents woke to the sound of explosions. Ukraine launched what Russian officials described as the largest drone assault on the Russian capital in more than a year, sending more than 500 unmanned systems deep into Russian territory and striking targets within the city and across the surrounding region. At least four people were killed and a dozen injured. Fires broke out near the Moscow Oil Refinery in the Kapotnya district. The Angstrom microelectronics plant in Zelenograd, a key node in Russia’s defence industrial network, was struck. Debris fell on the grounds of Sheremetyevo Airport, Russia’s busiest aviation hub. Russian air defences claimed to have intercepted 556 drones overnight across the country, and more than 120 over the Moscow region alone. Some, as the burning refinery and the smoking ruins of residential buildings showed, got through.
This was not the first attack on Moscow, and it was not designed as purely a propaganda spectacular. The Moscow attack was the logical continuation of a Ukrainian long-range strike campaign that has been building for four years, and which is now reshaping the strategic landscape of the war in ways that Vladimir Putin cannot easily reverse.
Target Moscow: A Campaign Built Over Four Years
While Ukraine’s drone campaign against Russia has been ongoing for four years, the campaign against Moscow has a clear genealogy. It began in May 2023, when two drones exploded above the Senate Palace inside the Kremlin. This shocked the Russian public and signalled that the war that Putin started in Ukraine could reach the Russian seat of power. By July 2023, strikes had begun reaching Moscow’s commercial and financial districts. Through 2024, the campaign broadened, with attacks increasingly focusing on the infrastructure underpinning Russia’s military economy, including fuel depots and oil refineries. A major strike in March 2025 saw more than 70 drones intercepted near the capital in a single day, at that stage the largest attack of the war.
By early 2026, the cadence and scale had intensified further. Between March 14 and 16 this year, approximately 250 drones targeted the Moscow region over three consecutive days. The strikes were not just symbolic. They were operational, targeting military-industrial facilities, fuel infrastructure, and the Russian air defence system. The May 17 attack was the culmination of this progression, not an outlier.
Zelenskyy’s Signal
Those watching Ukraine’s political messaging were not surprised. On 15 May 2026, two days before the Moscow attack, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated publicly that he had met with the leadership of the General Staff, military intelligence, and the Security Service to discuss expanding long-range strike operations. He was explicit that Ukraine’s campaign against Russian oil infrastructure, military production, and logistics networks would intensify. He described these operations as Ukraine’s own form of “long-range sanctions” against Russia.
In his social media post, Zelenskyy stated that:
We are defining targets for our next long-range sanctions against Russia over this war and the strikes against our cities and villages. Ukraine will not allow any of the aggressor’s strikes that take the lives of our people to go unpunished. We are entirely justified in our responses against Russia’s oil industry, military production, and those directly responsible for committing war crimes against Ukraine and Ukrainians. I am grateful to our warriors for their dedication to defending Ukraine’s interests, and to all involved Ukrainian institutions for building a truly strong system of our long-range sanctions. This is having a tangible impact.
Russia had just delivered one of its most devastating strikes of the war. Between 13 and 14 May, Russian forces launched 1,567 drones and 56 missiles against Ukraine, killing at least 24 people in Kyiv, including three children, when a missile destroyed a nine-storey apartment building. Zelenskyy, standing at the ruins, told the world that Ukraine would respond. ...
Here,
it seems you have repeated your original posting in detail. I get it. As you pointed out, no one is arguing that the attacks have not happened. Russian officials, as you pointed out, have said these attacks have happened. And it is escalation. And the Russians will escalate in return. And the discussion is about whether they will escalate to hitting government facilities in Kiev or whether they will hit German manufacturing and set off WWIII. I get it.
I seems to me, and I may misunderstand you, that from the tone of the article you posted that you feel the attacks are a good thing and will either defeat Russia or will cause Russia to give up on the war. The Nazi stuff and the nuclear weapons from NATO stuff seem to be immaterial.
Which is to say, if the Nazi stuff and the nuclear weapons from NATO stuff are immaterial, it doesn’t matter whether the Russian military sees the war as an existential threat, it doesn’t matter that Russia has superior weaponry and manufacturing ability, it doesn’t matter that Russia could flatten Ukraine. You’re counting on Russia not flattening Ukraine. Or, you’re counting on Russia flattening Ukraine, at which point Europe becomes a military industrial fortress, underwritten by the U.S. taxpayer, with weapons for everyone, but no healthcare or education.
Doesn’t it occur to you that with each and every escalation that Ukraine has launched, the Russian response has increasingly destroyed Ukraine’s infrastructure? Does it concern you that the Patriot system we provided not only didn’t work effectively but disappeared? What happened to the F-16s? How about the HIMARS system helping Ukraine target the Kakhovka dam, for which targeting a Ukrainian general thanked us? Has that entire flooded area been restored? How has any of this escalation or devastation helped Ukraine?
I know it has helped the lunatics from Quagmires R Us. But the people of Ukraine have not benefited from attempts to dissuade the Russian people or the Russian government by escalating the horrors of this war.
Actually, Ukraine, as usual, targeted mostly apartment
buildings, butthis time, not any theaters,nightclubs, grocery stores and the like. They don't really rely upon strategic thinking for targeting, preferring pure terrorism in the misguided belief that doing so will lead to Putin's overthrow.
be well and have a good one
That, in its essence, is fascism--ownership of government by an individual, by a group, or by any other controlling private power. -- Franklin D. Roosevelt --
@enhydra lutris Probably just an accident
Probably just an accident that they hit the oil refinery, high tech missile plant, and airport.
From the Russian Source Rybar the millbloger Mikhail Zvinchuk
Russian media Rybar confirms Ukrainian progress in Stepnohirsk: "new reports arrive of deteriorating situation in Stepnogorsk and surrounding areas, as well as neighboring Primorsk. According to objective control footage, the enemy already moves into the settlement relatively freely, which indicates Russian Armed Forces positions have been lost west of the city."
There have been a few of these reports of Ukraine taking small amounts of territory over the past month. It's just my opinion but I don't think it's so much that Ukraine is making advances but rather that Russia is pulling back from a few places for any number of reasons.