KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russian air defenses intercepted nearly 900 Ukrainian drones overnight over multiple regions of the country, as well as the occupied Crimean Peninsula and the Sea of Azov, the Defense Ministry in Moscow said Tuesday.
Unconfirmed media reports said a major fuel depot in the Moscow region was on fire after the attack that killed two people.
Ukraine’s domestically developed long-range drones and, increasingly, missiles have allowed Kyiv to hit Russian soil during the more than 4 ½ years since Moscow’s forces launched a full-scale invasion. It has hit targets as far east as the Urals and Siberia.
The bigger Russian military’s air superiority during the war has made aerial attacks on civilian areas of Ukraine routine.
Ukrainian officials are now bracing for what President Volodymyr Zelenskyy warned Tuesday is an upcoming “massive” aerial attack by Russia.
“Today, we received updated intelligence on Russia’s preparations for a massive strike. We are preparing countermeasures,” Zelenskyy said on social media. “We set deadlines for a significant part of the tasks, and the highest-priority ones are already being implemented.”
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha said last week that Kyiv estimates Russia is holding 600 ballistic missiles in reserve and can produce up to 140 ballistic missiles per month. Without ammunition for its U.S.-made Patriot air defense systems, which is in short supply, Ukraine is at the mercy of Russia's ballistic weapons.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said 650 drones flew toward the Moscow region between Monday evening and Tuesday morning. Most were destroyed far away, and 105 were downed as they approached the city, he said.
Sobyanin later reported 68 more drones targeting Moscow were downed during daylight on Tuesday morning.
Ukraine has regularly targeted Russian oil refineries and storage depots, claiming last weekend that it had disabled 51% of Russia’s oil refining capacity. The claim could not be independently verified. Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week that the attacks had cost Russia roughly 1% of its gross domestic product.
Russia has traditionally been the world’s third-largest producer of refined fuel products from crude, after the U.S. and China. The Kremlin has banned diesel exports due to the Ukrainian strikes, pushing global prices higher. That prompted U.S. President Donald Trump last month to urge Ukraine to stop hitting Russia’s refineries.
After several days of targeting bridges in the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, as part of a campaign to make civilian life difficult, Russia attacked one of the bridges over the Dnipro River in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia, according to Mykhailo Semikin, the regional military administration chief.
Traffic across the bridge was temporarily suspended as a result of the attack, he said.
A nighttime Russian attack on a Zaporizhzhia residential building wounded five people and a daylight strike on a warehouse in the city caused a large fire, regional head Mikhail Semikin said.
Russian forces are also trying to choke shipping in Ukrainian ports in the Black Sea, denying Kyiv vital grain export revenue.
The Russian Defense Ministry said its forces overnight struck targets in Ukraine's southern Odesa region on the Black Sea coast with drones. An ammunition depot was hit, as were a bulk carrier in the Chornomorsk port carrying dual-use goods and port infrastructure in Izmail, the ministry said.
A Russian drone strike hit a cargo ship flying the flag of the Marshall Islands in the Black Sea, killing one person and wounding seven others, Odesa regional governor Oleh Kiper said. The vessel was carrying rapeseed oil, he said.
Asked about Lithuania’s offer to host a U.S. military base and the Lithuanian parliament voting on a bill to allow the deployment of nuclear weapons in the country, Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said the moves would escalate tensions.
“If military infrastructure belonging to a key NATO member moves closer to our borders, then naturally, this can only be perceived as a step toward escalating tensions, just like the deployment of nuclear weapons on the territory of a neighboring state,” Peskov told reporters.
Trump said Monday he would consider establishing a permanent U.S. military base in Lithuania, one of three small Baltic states seen as particularly vulnerable to Russia.
Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk warned last month that Moscow is planning hybrid strikes with drones or rockets on European countries supporting Ukraine, which include Poland and Lithuania.
AP reporter Claudia Ciobanu in Warsaw, Poland contributed to this story.
Follow the AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
Rescue workers extinguish a fire at a furniture factory, damaged by a Russian drone strike, in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine, Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026. (AP Photo/Kateryna Klochko)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Services on Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026, rescue workers put out a fire of cars after a Russian strike on gas station in Zaporizhzhia, Ukraine. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Emergency Services on Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026, rescue workers put out a fire of ambulances after a Russian strike on a medical facility of Kramatorsk, Ukraine. (Ukrainian Emergency Service via AP)
REYKJAVIK, Iceland (AP) — U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio on Tuesday sought to reassure NATO ally Iceland that President Donald Trump's administration has no designs on the island but shares its deep concerns about Arctic security as tensions between the United States and Russia rise in the high north and elsewhere.
Rubio hailed the role of diplomacy in resolving conflicts as he began a three-nation tour of NATO allies in the capital of Iceland, where concerns over the Republican administration’s often brusque and sometimes rude approach to traditional friends and partners have stirred unease.
Rubio, whose tour of NATO members will include Greece and Portugal, met Tuesday with Icelandic Foreign Secretary Thorgerdur Katrín Gunnarsdóttir at Reykjavik’s Hofdi House, the site of the 1986 summit between U.S. President Ronald Reagan and Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev that is widely regarded as the beginning of the end of the Cold War.
“The house symbolizes diplomacy’s role in ending the Cold War and defeating communism,” Rubio posted on social media after the talks that took place just days before the 40th anniversary of the landmark meeting.
However, both Rubio and Gunnarsdóttir downplayed differences between the allies and said both countries were committed to deepening and expanding military and commercial ties. Rubio made clear that the United States would not do anything in Iceland without Iceland's consent.
“We would be open to having those conversations to see what we can do together,” he said, noting that the U.S. had a decades-long permanent military presence in Iceland until 2006, when shifting priorities caused it to close its Keflavik base outside of Reykjavik. He noted that priorities have shifted again.
And, he went out of his way to praise Iceland: “We have tremendous respect for the people. We have respect for the country in the role it plays, and it has for a very long time,” he said.
Iceland has been uneasy about Trump’s intentions toward it after the posting of a map showing the colors of the U.S. flag sprawling across all of North America and extending to Iceland and Greenland. The unease has persisted despite an agreement reached last month to increase the U.S. presence in the neighboring Danish territory of Greenland that appears to have ended Trump’s earlier demand for the U.S. to take full control.
But on Tuesday, after Rubio's talks with Gunnarsdóttir and Iceland's Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir, those tensions appeared to be on the wane.
Gunnarsdóttir said the matter had been largely, if not entirely, resolved. “We remain focused on the future," she said. Rubio, meanwhile, said he was not in Iceland to talk about social media posts. “Everything is very positive,” he said.
Before leaving Washington on Monday, Rubio said the visit is intended to “advance our shared priorities: a secure Arctic, stronger commercial and energy ties, and closer defense cooperation.” He offered no hint of tensions with the island that, while a NATO member, has no standing army.
The map incident, however, alarmed Icelanders, and in response, Gunnarsdóttir summoned U.S. Ambassador Billy Long to a meeting at which she made it clear the post was unacceptable.
Iceland, which is just 180 miles (290 kilometers) from Greenland, had already been on edge after Trump mistakenly named the country four times while speaking about Greenland.
Long, a colorful former Missouri congressman, IRS commissioner and professional auctioneer, also has made waves in Iceland. Before he took up his post in August, thousands of Icelanders signed a petition urging the prime minister to reject him after he made a crack earlier this year about Iceland becoming the 52nd U.S. state and making him governor. He has since apologized for the quip.
Long is not the first Trump ambassador to Iceland to have raised concerns with the host government. In Trump’s first term, Ambassador Jeffrey Ross Gunter left locals in relatively crime-free Reykjavik aghast over his request to hire armed bodyguards, which prompted complaints.
At Rubio’s next stop in Athens, he may be dealing with another ambassador controversy. Rep. Gregory Meeks, a New York Democrat who is the ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said last week that he would investigate allegations of misconduct and impropriety by the U.S. ambassador to Greece, Kimberly Guilfoyle.
In a letter to Rubio, Meeks said he wanted answers following the allegations reported by The Wall Street Journal last month and that he would call for Guilfoyle’s dismissal if the behavior outlined in the news report was true.
The Journal reported that Guilfoyle told guests at a reception that the U.S. could undermine the Greek government if it chose to, promoted the business interests of one particular Greek construction and energy company, and allowed its lobbyist into private diplomatic meetings.
Some Greek opposition parties have called for an inquiry into the allegations, but it's unclear if they will proceed.
Guilfoyle, a former Fox News Channel host and California prosecutor who was once engaged to Trump’s son Donald Jr., has denied any wrongdoing, and Rubio has defended her before.
Guilfoyle, Rubio said after the Journal story appeared, “has been an incredible advocate for the president’s agenda in Greece and across Europe.” Rubio said he and Trump greatly value the ambassador’s “pivotal work and leadership,” notably on energy issues.
The Trump administration sees Greece as key to advancing the promotion and export of U.S.-produced liquefied natural gas to Southeastern and Central Europe.
U.S. ambassador to Iceland Billy Long attends a joint press conference held by U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio and Iceland's Foreign Minister Thorgerour Katrín Gunnarsdottir at the House of Collections, Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026, in Reykjavik, Iceland. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, Pool)
Prime Minister Kristrún Frostadóttir attends a meeting with U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio at the House of Collections, Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026, in Reykjavik, Iceland. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, Pool)
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks during a press conference with Iceland's Foreign Minister Thorgerour Katrín Gunnarsdottir at the House of Collections, Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026, in Reykjavik, Iceland. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, Pool)
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks during a press conference with Iceland's Foreign Minister Thorgerour Katrín Gunnarsdottir at the House of Collections, Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026, in Reykjavik, Iceland. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, Pool)
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio speaks during a press conference with Iceland's Foreign Minister Thorgerour Katrín Gunnarsdottir at the House of Collections, Tuesday, Oct. 6, 2026, in Reykjavik, Iceland. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, Pool)
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio arrives at Keflavik Airport, Iceland, Monday, Oct. 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, Pool)
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, is welcomed by Iceland's Foreign Minister Thorgerour Katrín Gunnarsdottir, center, and by Chief of Protocol Helga Hauksdottir, as he arrives at Keflavik Airport, Iceland, Monday, Oct. 5, 2026.(AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, Pool)
U.S. Secretary of State Marco Rubio, left, is welcomed by Iceland's Foreign Minister Thorgerour Katrín Gunnarsdottir, center, and William Long, the U.S. Ambassador to Iceland, as he arrives at Keflavik Airport, Iceland, Monday, Oct. 5, 2026. (AP Photo/Mark Schiefelbein, Pool)
