MOSCOW (AFP) — A huge wave of almost 600 Ukrainian drones attacked Russia overnight, killing three people in the Moscow region and one in the Belgorod region, authorities said on Sunday.

Air defenses shot down 556 drones overnight across the country, Russia's defense ministry said, with another 30 drones neutralized after dawn in one of the largest Ukrainian barrages of the ongoing conflict so far.

These interceptions — far above the few dozen more often reported — took place across 14 Russian regions, as well as the Crimean peninsula annexed from Ukraine and the Black and Azov seas, the ministry added, with the region around the capital among the worst-hit.

"A woman was killed as a result of a UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) hitting a private house. One more person is trapped under rubble," the Moscow region's Governor Andrey Vorobyov posted on Telegram, adding that the early morning attack also claimed the lives of two men.

"Since 3 o'clock in the morning, air defense forces have been repelling a large-scale UAV attack on the capital region," he said, adding four people were wounded and infrastructure facilities had been targeted.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had vowed on Friday to launch more retaliatory strikes, a day after a Russian attack on Kyiv killed 24 people and injured around 50 more.

Within Russia's capital, local authorities reported that air defense systems had intercepted more than 80 drones overnight, wounding 12 people.

"Minor damage has been recorded at the sites where debris fell," Mayor Sergei Sobyanin posted on Telegram.

One of the strikes wounded construction workers at a job site near an oil and gas refinery, Sobyanin said.

"Refinery production has not been disrupted. Three residential buildings were damaged," he added.

While the capital region is often subjected to drone attacks, the city of Moscow, around 400 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, is less frequently targeted.

In the Belgorod region which borders Ukraine, one man was killed overnight in the Shebekino district in a drone attack on a lorry, regional authorities said.

The Ukrainian air force said meanwhile it had intercepted 279 Russian drones out of a total of 287 launched.