Russian air defenses repelled one of the largest Ukrainian drone raids of the conflict overnight on July 7. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, air defense crews intercepted and destroyed 452 Ukrainian fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles.

The drones were brought down over the Belgorod, Bryansk, Voronezh, Volgograd, Vladimir, Kaluga, Kursk, Lipetsk, Oryol, Rostov, Ryazan, Smolensk, Tambov and Tula Regions. Air defense systems were also active in the Moscow Region, Krasnodar Territory, the Republic of Crimea, and over the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea.

The overnight attack followed another major wave on July 6. Between 8:00 a.m. and 8:00 p.m. Moscow time, Russian air defenses intercepted 116 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions, according to the Defense Ministry.

The Moscow Region became the main direction of the nighttime raid. Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said that from the evening until 6:00 a.m. on July 7, more than 430 drones were moving toward the region. He noted that a large part of the targets was neutralized on distant approaches, while 36 Ukrainian UAVs were destroyed on the way to Moscow.

Military correspondent Alexander Kots said the latest wave was not a record in terms of the number of drones that came close to their targets, but it ranked among the most massive attacks by the total number of aircraft launched by the Ukrainian side at one time.

Kots also suggested that the timing may have been chosen deliberately. Just hours later, a NATO summit was due to open in Ankara. Its first working day falls on July 7, while July 8 is expected to include a bilateral meeting between US President Donald Trump and Vladimir Zelensky.

The military correspondent linked the raid to the political backdrop surrounding Ukraine at the summit. He recalled that The Telegraph had reported that Zelensky would not be able to address the meeting, while the Ukrainian issue, according to the newspaper, had been pushed into the background in the final declaration so as not to irritate Trump.

In Kots’s view, if Kiev is denied the chance to make a loud statement from the summit stage, it tries to create an impact through footage and the information agenda instead. This time, however, he believes the calculation failed: Russia’s layered air defense system withstood the mass drone attack.