'I Looked at the Window and Saw a Ball of Fire'

Ukraine has reportedly launched its biggest drone attack on the Russian capital since war erupted between the countries two and a half years ago. Russia's Defense Ministry said Tuesday that 144 Ukrainian drones were shot down around the country amid a wave of overnight attacks. "Half were in the western border region of Bryansk, 20 were in Moscow, and 14 were over the Kursk region," the BBC reports. A 46-year-old woman was killed and 12 others injured, two critically, in Ramenskoye, 30 miles southeast of Moscow, where high-rise apartment buildings erupted in flames, per Al Jazeera. "I looked at the window and saw a ball of fire," one area resident tells Reuters.

Dozens were evacuated, according to reports. Additionally, "three of Moscow's four airports were closed for more than six hours and almost 50 flights were diverted," CNN reports. Russian President Vladimir Putin, leading a war effort that has killed thousands of civilians and damaged many residential properties in Ukraine, says the Ukrainian drone attacks targeting residential buildings are "terrorism." "There is no way that nighttime strikes on residential neighborhoods can be associated with military action," Kremlin rep Dmitry Peskov says, per Reuters. Both Russia and Ukraine deny targeting civilians.

Kyiv says it destroyed 38 of 46 Russian drones launched overnight in cities including Kyiv, Odesa, Kherson, Kharkiv, and Poltava. Putin vows more attacks in response to the drone attacks. Peskov says they show the need to continue the war "in order to protect ourselves," per the BBC. Meanwhile, US Secretary of State Antony Blinken, who's set to travel to Kyiv this week, says Russia has received ballistic missiles from Iran and "will likely use them within weeks in Ukraine," per the Guardian. He says the move, to result in new sanctions on Iran, "threatens European security" and represents "a dramatic escalation" by Iran and Russia. France, Germany, and the UK also condemned the shipments in a joint statement Tuesday. (More Russia-Ukraine war stories.)