Chilling footage out of the Kyiv region shows the sky lit up in orange as a massive Russian drone barrage tore through the area overnight on September 20 into September 21. Ukrainian officials say more than 170 drones were launched at Kyiv and surrounding districts, triggering an air raid alert that stretched almost the entire day and into the following morning. Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv Regional State Administration, said the strikes damaged at least 34 civilian sites, including private homes, warehouses, a dormitory, administrative buildings, a gas station, and a farm, with debris falling across several districts.

The strike came just as Russia vowed to intensify its assault on Kyiv, retaliating after Ukraine launched what Moscow's own mayor called the largest drone attack ever on the Russian capital, more than 1,000 drones targeting Moscow during the final day of Russia's wartime parliamentary elections. While earlier and later barrages this year have combined drones with ballistic and cruise missiles, official reporting on this particular overnight attack points specifically to a drone-only assault on the Kyiv region rather than a missile strike. Even without missiles in the mix, the scale of the drone swarm left a trail of damage across dozens of sites, underscoring just how relentless the tit-for-tat aerial war between Moscow and Kyiv has become.