The Russian Ministry of Defense summarized the interim results of air defense operations during the daytime hours of May 18, 2026. According to the ministry's report, between 7:00 and 16:00 Moscow time, air defense alert systems intercepted and destroyed 91 Ukrainian fixed-wing unmanned aerial vehicles.

The downed drones were distributed across the following regions: Belgorod, Voronezh, Kaluga, Kursk, Lipetsk, Nizhny Novgorod, Rostov, Tula regions, the Moscow region, and Krasnodar Krai.

Earlier, during the night of May 17-18, Russian air defense forces destroyed 50 Ukrainian UAVs. This brings the total number of drones shot down in the past 24 hours (including both night and day reports) to 141. The previous day, May 17, saw a record-breaking 1054 drones shot down in one day.

In the Moscow region, on the morning of May 18, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin reported the destruction of two drones flying toward Moscow. In the Nizhny Novgorod region, a fire broke out in the city of Kstovo during the day following a drone attack.