More than 400 flights have been delayed or canceled at airports serving Moscow amid what Russian authorities described as the largest drone attack on the region, according to Russian media outlets RBC and Kommersant.
By noon on September 20, airport online boards showed that more than 30 flights had been canceled at Sheremetyevo, while over 120 were delayed on arrival and another 120 on departure. Some flights were diverted to Nizhny Novgorod, Kazan, Cheboksary and St. Petersburg. According to Yandex Schedules data for the morning of September 20 cited by the Association of Tour Operators of Russia (ATOR), cancellations affected flights to Sochi, Gelendzhik, Mineralnye Vody, St. Petersburg, Perm, Minsk and other cities. Delayed departures included flights to Antalya, Sharm el-Sheikh, Cairo, Istanbul, Sochi, Kaliningrad, Yerevan and Almaty.
At Vnukovo, 11 domestic and international flights, including services to Minsk and St. Petersburg, were canceled. Another 69 flights were delayed on arrival and 60 on departure, affecting flights to Antalya, Istanbul, Samarkand, Batumi and Yerevan. At Domodedovo, one flight was canceled and 27 were delayed. At Zhukovsky, two flights had been canceled since the start of the day, while four aircraft were delayed on arrival and three on departure. The airport resumed operations at 9 a.m. Sheremetyevo’s press service said flights were operating according to a “revised schedule,” with the changes being “necessary” due to airport closures in other regions. Domodedovo issued a similar statement, while Vnukovo reported at 12:50 p.m. that it was “gradually restoring normal operations.”
Moscow and the Moscow Region came under a major Ukrainian drone attack overnight on September 20. Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin described it as the “most massive” attack since the start of the war. According to Sobyanin, more than 1,600 UAVs had been intercepted “along all lines” since September 19, including 450 “on approach to Moscow.”
Moscow Region Governor Andrey Vorobyov said 249 UAVs had been intercepted across 17 municipalities between 3 a.m. and 5 a.m. He did not specify the total number of drones that targeted the region.
The attack reportedly hit the Moscow Oil Refinery, Thermal Power Plant No. 22 in Dzerzhinsky and a major warehouse in Ramensky District. Several apartment buildings in Moscow and the surrounding region were also damaged. According to official figures, at least two people were killed and another 20 injured.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the attack involved various types of UAVs as well as Flamingo cruise missiles and Pelican ballistic missiles.
By Jeyhun Aghazada
