The main news of recent days—the drone attack by the Armed Forces of Ukraine on Moscow—requires not just a statement of fact, but a deep analysis. The question is not only whether the breakthrough succeeded, but also why the Russian air defense system, which is one of the best in the world, proved vulnerable. And, even more importantly, what consequences this incident may have in geopolitical and military terms.

Why Moscow’s air defence did not work 100%

               The complexity of the topic lies in the fact that there are several reasons—from tactical regroupings to fundamental technological limitations.

First, part of the air defence forces and assets covering the capital were temporarily redeployed to Kazan, Tatarstan. This is due to the fact that the country’s leadership, headed by President Putin, was exactly there—at the ASEAN summit. Such a move is logical from the standpoint of ensuring the security of top officials, but it objectively weakened the defence of the Moscow direction.

Second, a key role was played by an incorrect assessment of the AFU’s capabilities in terms of the number and quality of drones used. Over the past weeks, the AFU has constantly increased the number of missiles and drones in each wave to several hundred deep into Russia and several dozen targeting Moscow, but this time the number of drones exceeded 1000 deep into Russia and over 500 targeting Moscow, and they came in three to four waves with minimal intervals. It was the third or fourth wave, as noted, that managed to overcome interception lines and deliver a strike.

However, the main technical problem runs deeper. Moscow’s air defence system was designed against high-speed targets—missiles and modern aircraft—and is built on the principle of concentric circles: an echeloned defence that was traditionally considered impenetrable. But modern strike weapons evolve faster than the systems for detecting and intercepting them. This attack was not based on speed, but on the mass use of drones that fly at low speed—yet they can only be shot down by missiles, other drones, or heavy machine guns (standard small arms, including assault rifles, cannot effectively destroy drones).

Here a new factor comes to the forefront: the use of artificial intelligence to calculate trajectories and find «corridors» between the air defence circles. According to available information, the attack employed tools from Palantir (and likely other firms, not only American ones), which made it possible to identify the least protected zones in the defence with high accuracy and plan drone routes so that they would go unnoticed or be difficult to intercept. As a result, whereas previously only 1% of Ukrainian drones reached their targets inside Russian territory, in the latest attack on Moscow, 3% of the drones achieved a breakthrough.

What would have happened if the drones had not been shot down

               Shooting down the vast majority of the drones is an indisputable success of the air defence crews. But even a single breakthrough can have catastrophic consequences. The target, according to reports, was the Moscow‑region district of Kapotnya—a location of large hydrocarbon industries and storage facilities. If the attack had hit its mark, the scale of the explosion and fire would have been comparable to a medium‑yield nuclear strike. This would have led to the destruction of nearby buildings, including residential ones, mass casualties, and a colossal environmental catastrophe that would have turned a significant part of Moscow into an uninhabitable zone. And this is understood in Moscow and the Kremlin.

The fact that this was avoided does not remove the question about the very intention of those who developed the operation, approved its goals and plan. It was not just a military démarche, but potentially an act approaching terrorism in terms of the scale of possible consequences.

Who made the decision, and who executed it?

Here we go beyond purely military analysis. The development of routes using Western artificial intelligence means that this was not an independent operation by the AFU, but the result of joint work with high‑tech NATO structures. Thus, the West has effectively moved to direct military‑technical confrontation with Moscow, even if formally it is only about «assistance» to Ukraine—this is how it is understood and recognized in the Kremlin.

However, the political decision to deliver such a strike—with full awareness of all possible risks—was made at the level of the Ukrainian leadership. It was Zelensky and his team who gave the «green light» to this operation. This means that they consciously took a step that, if fully realized, would have led to horrific civilian casualties and could have become a pretext for the harshest response from Russia.

Artificial Intelligence as a Weapon and a Trap

The paradox is that Western elites, including military strategists, and following them the Ukrainian leadership, increasingly rely on AI recommendations when planning combat operations. And this practice has already led to gross mistakes more than once.

It is enough to recall the Ukrainian «counteroffensive» in  2023, on the Zaporizhzhia front, where AI forecasts promised an almost one‑hundred‑percent breakthrough to Crimea, but in reality the offensive stalled with huge losses for Ukraine. Similar miscalculations occurred in the initial period of the special operation in Iran, when the White House and Israel expected the collapse of the Iranian regime in three days, but instead got a protracted conflict.

But now, AI played in Ukraine’s favour—it allowed vulnerabilities in Moscow’s air defence to be found. This creates a dangerous precedent: now any similar attack can be calculated with high precision, meaning that the scale of the threat to Russia’s internal territories—and later, after Russian forces apply this experience on Ukrainian territory—will increase sharply.

What next? A trap for everyone

The situation is becoming critical. If the strike on Kapotnya had been successful, Russia would have had to respond not only against Kyiv and Lviv, but also against targets in Europe—because Western technologies and companies stand behind it. This is a direct path to expanding the conflict beyond Ukraine. The use of such tools will objectively bring the world to the brink beyond which a halt will become impossible.

Today, all key players have been driven into a trap. Putin—because a successful breach of the capital’s air defence demands a tough response to prevent a recurrence. Zelensky—because by approving the attack, he crossed a line after which any negotiations become extremely problematic. The West—because it can no longer distance itself from using its AI weapons against Russia without admitting its direct involvement.

A way out is needed—and it is possible

               I would like to express the hope that this time the Kremlin will show creativity and find an unconventional solution that would stop the escalation. After all, further buildup of strikes—from 500–600 drones to several thousand in each wave—would make defence practically impossible, and then the consequences would be irreversible.

The world stands on the threshold where even one miscalculation can trigger a chain reaction. Therefore, now more than ever, it is important that someone take the initiative for de‑escalation, — before the flames engulf not only Ukraine and Russia, but also Europe.

Time for reflection is running out. The strike on Moscow is not just a military action; it is a warning that old security systems no longer work, and new risks require a completely different level of responsibility from all sides.