Ukraine drone attacks briefly shut down Moscow's international airports

All four international airports around Moscow temporarily suspended flights on Tuesday as Russian forces intercepted more than 100 Ukrainian drones fired at almost a dozen Russian regions, the defence ministry in Moscow said.

Nine other regional Russian airports also temporarily stopped operating as drones struck areas along the border with Ukraine and deeper inside Russia, according to Russia's civil aviation agency Rosaviatsia and the defence ministry. It was the second straight night that the Moscow region reportedly was targeted.

The drone assault threatened a planned unilateral 72-hour ceasefire in the more than announced by Russia's President Vladimir Putin to coincide with celebrations in Moscow marking Victory Day in World War II.

The day celebrating Moscow's defeat of Nazi Germany in 1945 is Russia's biggest secular holiday. Chinese President Xi Jinping, Brazilian leader Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva and others will gather in the Russian capital on Thursday, 8 May for the 80th anniversary and watch a parade featuring thousands of troops accompanied by tanks and missiles.

Ukraine's foreign ministry urged foreign countries not to send military representatives to take part in the parade, as some have in the past. None is officially confirmed for this year's event.

❗️🇺🇦⚔️🇷🇺 - Ukrainian drones attacked Moscow and 13 other Russian regions on May 5, 2025, disrupting three major Moscow airports—Domodedovo, Vnukovo, and Zhukovsky—and targeting military and energy sites up to 700 miles from Ukraine’s front lines.

The strikes, which mark a… pic.twitter.com/UEPZAQMs1O

— 🔥🗞The Informant (@theinformant_x) May 5, 2025

Ukraine will regard the participation of foreign military personnel as “an affront to the memory of the victory over Nazism, to the memory of millions of Ukrainian front-line soldiers who liberated our country and all of Europe from Nazism eight decades ago,” a statement on the ministry's website said.

Security is expected to be tight. Russian officials have warned that internet access could be restricted in Moscow during the celebrations and have told residents not to set off fireworks.

Putin last week declared the “on humanitarian grounds” from 8 May. Ukraine has demanded a longer ceasefire. Russia has effectively rejected a US proposal for an immediate and full 30-day halt in the fighting by insisting on far-reaching conditions. Ukraine has accepted that proposal, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy says.

US President Donald Trump said on Monday that the brief truce “doesn't sound like much, but it's… a lot if you knew where we started from.”

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday that ceasefire orders had been issued to Russian troops but soldiers would retaliate if fired upon.

Meanwhile, Ukraine and Russia swapped hundreds of captured soldiers in one of the largest exchanges since Moscow's full-scale invasion started in February 2022. The last exchange was on 19 April.

Today we honor the warriors who hold the line – for Ukraine’s positions and for the Ukrainian state. Wherever a Ukrainian infantryman advances, the Ukrainian flag is raised.

It is always our infantry who stand on the most difficult frontlines. They hold the defense, lead… pic.twitter.com/X8q2ld6uAi

— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) May 6, 2025

President Zelenskyy and Russia's ministry of defence said they each received 205 soldiers in the swap. Both sides said the United Arab Emirates had mediated the exchange, as on previous occasions.

The long-range strikes by both sides continued, however. Ukraine has used increasingly sophisticated, domestically produced drones to compensate for having a smaller army than Russia along the roughly 1,000-km frontline, and to take the war onto Russian soil with long-range strikes.

Russia has used Shahed drones as well as 1,300-kg glide bombs, artillery and cruise and ballistic missiles against Ukraine.

Two people were injured in , according to local governor Alexander Khinshtein, and some damage was reported in the Voronezh region. The Russian reports couldn't be independently verified.

Meanwhile, the Ukrainian air force said Russia fired 136 strike and decoy drones overnight. Russian forces fired at least 20 Shahed drones at Kharkiv, Ukraine's second-largest city near the border with Russia, injuring four people, regional governor Oleh Syniehubov wrote on Telegram.

The drones started a fire at the biggest market in Kharkiv, Barabashovo, destroying and damaging around 100 stalls, he said. Seven civilians were hurt elsewhere in the Kharkiv region by Russian glide bombs and drones, Syniehubov said.

In Kramatorsk, in Ukraine's eastern Donetsk region, Russian Shahed drones killed one person and injured two others, mayor Oleksandr Honcharenko wrote on Facebook. The drones targeted residential and industrial areas of the city, he said.

In the Odesa region, Russian drones struck residential buildings and civilian infrastructure, killing one person, regional head Oleh Kiper wrote on Telegram.