Ukrainian Drone Strikes on Moscow and Crimea

May 17, 2026May 17, 2026

Judging by the latest visits from Good Birds¹, the resort season opened in russia overnight into Sunday. A significant portion of Ukrainian drone strikes happened in temporarily occupied Crimea. The main events related to resort openings took place in Sevastopol, and they observed firework shows literally from all sides.

Another epicenter of the pyrotechnic display was Cape Fiolent, where the enemy has air defense units, electronic warfare, and an operational-tactical missile division stationed.

We don’t know everything that happened in Crimea yet, but part of the events already found coverage online. USF² Commander Robert “Madyar” Brovdi released footage and described the list of struck targets:

The variety of targets is off the charts, we’re scaling up.
During the nights of May 16 and 17, in operational depth, USF Birds delivered 186 fire strikes on 46 military targets and objects in the Swamps³ and in temporarily occupied Crimea, Donetsk, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk oblasts.

🔥Border patrol ship project 10410, Kaspiysk, Dagestan, rf (1 USF OC)

🔥Tor-M2 air defense system, Zakhidne, Luhansk oblast (9th Kairos bat 414 USF OBr “Madyar’s Birds”)

🔥Strategic protected communications node of the Black Sea Fleet rf navy, Myrnyi, Crimea (1 USF OC)

🔥Train with fuel and lubricants, Fedorivka, Donetsk oblast (9th Kairos bat 414 USF OBr “Madyar’s Birds”)

🔥Port cranes, Berdiansk, Zaporizhzhia oblast (1 SBS OC)

🔥Meeting of leadership of 2nd engineer-sapper battalion 91st regiment rf, Shakhtarsk, Donetsk oblast (1 USF OC)

🔥Command post of 9th motorized rifle brigade 51st Army rf, Pokrovsk, Donetsk oblast (413 USF OP “Raid”)

🔥UAV control point and enemy logistics warehouse, Selidove, Donetsk oblast (412 USF OBr “NEMESIS”)

🔥Command post of 103rd motorized regiment 150th division 8th Army rf, Bunge, Donetsk oblast (414 USF OBr “Madyar’s Birds”, USF grouping GV BAS “Phoenix” SBGS of Ukraine)

🔥Telecommunications towers, Zaporizhzhia oblast (414 SBS OBr “Madyar’s Birds”)

Moscow Gets Its Share

But this time the capital of the Rabid Federation didn’t stay aside from the heat and light celebration either, because many Good Birds visited the enemy capital. At minimum, numerous messages and videos already arrived from there confirming the festivities took place. Muscovites observed a black smoke column from the area of a large oil depot in suburban Solnechnogorsk, and local Telegram channels write that Ukrainian drone strikes targeted the Moscow refinery in Kapotnya. In some videos, locals ask the usual questions: “What did we do to deserve this?”

According to them, they imagined war “more differently”, not all this. But this night truly turned out unusual, because precisely in the Moscow region — which is simply oversaturated with air defense systems — strikes hit many locations.

The most surprised turned out to be passengers at Sheremetyevo airport. Besides the usual flight cancellations, they could watch something burning near Runway No. 3 with their own eyes. What exactly is burning is hard to make out, but the modest and neat smoke column reaching into the sky life-affirmingly hints that the celebration has already arrived and you can dance right here and now.

There are also hits in Khimki, Zelenograd, Dubna and other objects in the Moscow region. They also write about explosions in central moscow. But we already know that strikes hit the “Angstrem” enterprise, a microelectronics manufacturer working for the military-industrial complex. Strikes also reached MKB “Raduga”, the bureau developing cruise missiles and other missile weapons. So far there’s no precise data on the results of Ukrainian drone strikes, except for the Transneft object, which is cheerfully burning. Accordingly, the fire on it is visible from afar and everyone understands that it got hit properly. Here’s confirmation of its strike from OSINT community CyberBoroshno:

This is an oil pumping station within Transneft’s main pipeline system in Moscow Oblast. As a result of the strike, a RVS-5000 reservoir caught fire, after which the fire transferred to a second identical reservoir.

The Air Defense “Bonus”

And finally, a telling nuance. There’s already eyewitness testimony that at least one apartment building got hit by a Russian air defense missile, probably from a Pantsir. Belgorod and Novorossiysk residents already know well that Russian air defense causes more damage to Russian buildings than to low-flying targets. Now Moscow residents will know this too.

¹Good Birds – slang for strike drones. Why “good”? Because they bring “warmth and light” to enemy military factories, ammunition depots, and oil refineries. Sarcastic? Of course. Effective? Even more so.

²USF – Unmanned Systems Forces, Ukraine’s newly established branch of the Armed Forces. No, not the U.S. Navy — in Ukraine USF means those who destroy Russian bombers, not those who park aircraft carriers.

³Swamps – an ironic name for Russia, emphasizing decay, stagnation, and filth. The Commander of the USF, Robert Browdie, and most soldiers use this word.