Ukraine has launched what is believed to be the largest ever drone strike against Moscow since Vladimir Putin’s invasion began in February 2022. 

Russian officials said they shot down 11 drones flying to Moscow, and were forced to fend off a further 23 over the border region of Bryansk, six over the Belgorod region, three over the Kaluga region and two over the Kursk region.

Moscow forced the temporary closure of three airports – but no casualties or significant damage to buildings was reported, according to the city’s mayor Sergei Sobyanin. 

It comes after Putin‘s forces bombed a children’s hospital in the wartorn Zaporizhzhia region, leaving at least one boy dead and four other young people injured. 

Video footage showed Russian air defence systems working overtime through the night, with anti-aircraft systems abruptly blowing up drones across western Russia, leaving them as little more than fireballs and debris. 

Many of Ukraine’s drones that targeted Moscow were destroyed over the city of Podolsk, which lies 24 miles south of the capital. 

Mr Sobyanin said of the attack: ‘This is one of the largest attempts to attack Moscow using drones ever.’

Despite this, the mayor reported that no injuries, casualties or damages were reported in the aftermath of the attack.

A ring of anti-aircraft and anti-drone missile systems meant Moscow city centre was unscathed. Even so, a large-scale attack so close to the Kremlin is likely to increase pressure on president Vladimir Putin. Only eight drones were involved in Kyiv’s attack on Moscow in May last year. 

The governor of the Bryansk region said there were no casualties or damages in his region either. 

Ukraine has not yet commented on the latest drone attack against Russia, though it did say its forces hit a missile complex in Novoshakhtinsk in Rostov. 

‘It should be noted that the Russian invaders also use S-300 complexes for attacks on peaceful cities of Ukraine, destroying residential buildings and terrorizing the civilian population,’ the Ukrainian army said in a statement on Wednesday morning.

It comes after the Lavender Cafe, a children’s cafe in the Zaporizhzhia region, was struck by a Russian missile. 

Distressing police pictures showed children being helped in the aftermath of the strike on civilians.

A 15-year-old boy tragically died in the strike. The others injured in the shelling were aged 11, 14, 17 and 18, said police.

A teenage girl is reportedly in a serious condition.

The destroyed cafe was in the village of Malokaterynivka, some 19 miles from the frontline, and was known to be popular with local children.

The head of the regional military administration, Ivan Fedorov, said there had been a direct strike on the cafe.

‘These are the consequences of the Russian strike on Malokaterynivka,’ he said.

‘The terrorist state [Russia] mutilates civilians and will not even stop at children. We must stop this.’

The bitter war between Russia and Ukraine has escalated in recent weeks, with Ukraine boldly sending its forces into Russian territory, the biggest foreign attack against Putin’s nation since the Second World War. 

Kremlin officials quoted in the Russian media yesterday conceded it will take ‘several months’ to liberate the 92 settlements occupied by Ukraine. 

But the picture is very different in eastern Ukraine where Russian forces have retained the upper hand. Yesterday, Moscow said its forces had gained further ground there. 

The Kremlin’s priority appears to remain capturing all of the Donetsk region and no forces have been pulled away from it to tackle the Kursk incursion. 

Ukrainian forces operating in Russia are believed to have used US-made HIMARS rocket systems there for the first time. They remain barred from using UK-supplied long-range Storm Shadow missiles inside Russia. 

The Institute for the Study of War, a think tank based in Washington, said in its daily report late on Tuesday that the Ukrainians have made additional advances in their incursion, now in its third week. 

It noted that Ukrainian forces appear to be striking Russian pontoon bridges and pontoon engineering equipment over the Seym River in an area west of the Kurst oblast.

The daring incursion into Russia has raised morale in Ukraine and changed the dynamic of the fighting. 

Russia meanwhile, has been making headway in eastern Ukraine, particularly in the industrial region of Donbas.

Putin was last night seen with Chechen warlord Ramzan Kadyrov, considered by many to be one of his closest allies, in Chechnya, where the pair were inspecting troops gearing themselves up to fight Ukraine. 

‘As long as we have men like you, we are absolutely, absolutely invincible,’ Putin told troops at the Russian Special Forces University, a training school in Chechnya’s Gudermes, according to a transcript on the Kremlin’s website.

‘It is one thing to shoot at a shooting range here, and another thing to put your life and health at risk. But you have an inner need to defend the Fatherland and the courage to make such a decision.’

Kadyrov told Putin on Tuesday that Chechnya, a largely Muslim republic that is part of Russia, had sent more than 47,000 troops since the start of the war to fight Ukraine, including about 19,000 volunteers.

He has described himself as Putin’s ‘foot soldier’ several times in the past. 

The Kremlin has relied on Kadyrov to keep the North Caucasus stable following years of turmoil. 

International rights groups have accused Kadyrov’s security forces of extrajudicial killings, torture and abductions of dissenters, but Russian authorities have stonewalled repeated demands for investigations.

The Kremlin scrambled fighters from Chechnya to help protect Moscow from an abortive mutiny launched by mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin last year, but some commentators warned that Kadyrov’s ambitions could also potentially pose a threat to federal authorities.