A 20-year-old man was killed in his bed when a drone struck a village outside Moscow early Tuesday, one of hundreds launched toward the Russian capital overnight in what officials called the second-largest such attack in two years. Moscow's mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, said Russian air defences intercepted most of the 650 drones aimed at the city and its surrounding region, with 105 shot down in the immediate vicinity of the capital itself. Six people were injured and several homes were damaged, according to regional governor Andrei Vorobyov and the Ria Novosti news agency. The scale of the assault marks a sharp escalation in a pattern that has defined this stage of the war: both Moscow and Kyiv are reaching further behind each other's front lines, striking energy plants, ports, and transport hubs rather than confining themselves to the battlefield.

Ukraine has increasingly used long-range drones to hit Russian oil refineries and military infrastructure, calculating that economic pressure may do what trench warfare cannot. Russia, for its part, has intensified bombardment of Ukraine's power grid, leaving cities such as Kyiv facing blackouts as colder months approach. What makes this exchange notable is not just its intensity but its symmetry. Civilians in Moscow's outer suburbs now share something with residents of Kyiv or Odesa: the experience of falling asleep uncertain whether the night sky will bring an explosion.

Neither government claims to be targeting ordinary people, yet both insist, carefully, that the other side started it. Russian officials have signalled that further strikes on infrastructure, including in Kyiv, are planned as winter sets in, raising fears of a harsher season for millions without reliable heat or electricity.