A swarm of drones yesterday hit Moscow in an unprecedented attack, while Russian drones struck Kyiv for a third straight day as Ukraine gears up for a major offensive against Russian forces.
The Russian Ministry of Defense blamed Kyiv for the attacks that saw three drones crash into residential buildings in Moscow.
Officials said no one was seriously injured and there was only “minor” damage to buildings.
Photo: AFP
The defense ministry said that eight drones were used in the attack, adding that five of them were downed and three disabled.
Of the three that hit residential buildings, two crashed into high-rises in Moscow’s affluent southwest, while a third damaged a residential building in a suburb of the capital.
The other drones fell outside Moscow. Some of the debris was found about 15km from Russian President Vladimir Putin’s Novo-Ogaryovo residence.
One video shared on social media showed an explosion followed by a column of smoke rising into the sky.
Two drones were intercepted over the Kremlin earlier this month, but yesterday’s attack was the first time that uncrewed aerial vehicles hit residential areas of Moscow, hundreds of kilometers from the front lines in Ukraine.
The raids are likely to be seen as a psychological blow and a major embarrassment for the Kremlin, which has gone to great lengths to say the protracted conflict in Ukraine does not pose a threat to Russians.
The Kremlin insisted that there was no “threat” to Russians, adding that Putin was being informed of the attacks in “real time.”
Moscow also said it believed the attack was a “response” by Kyiv to a recent Russian hit in Ukraine.
“It is completely clear that we are talking about response acts by the Kyiv regime to very effective strikes on a command center [in Ukraine],” Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, without clarifying where the Russian strike took place.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, said Kyiv had “no direct relation” to the Moscow attacks.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said two people had sought medical assistance after the raid, but “no-one has suffered serious injuries.”
The residents of buildings damaged in the strikes were briefly evacuated.
Meanwhile, Ukraine said that it yesterday downed 29 out of 31 drones, mainly over Kyiv and the Kyiv region in the latest Russian barrage — the third on the Ukrainian capital in 24 hours.
Two US House of Representatives committees yesterday condemned China’s attempt to orchestrate a crash involving Vice President Hsiao Bi-khim’s (蕭美琴) car when she visited the Czech Republic last year as vice president-elect. Czech local media in March last year reported that a Chinese diplomat had run a red light while following Hsiao’s car from the airport, and Czech intelligence last week told local media that Chinese diplomats and agents had also planned to stage a demonstrative car collision. Hsiao on Saturday shared a Reuters news report on the incident through her account on social media platform X and wrote: “I
‘BUILDING PARTNERSHIPS’: The US military’s aim is to continue to make any potential Chinese invasion more difficult than it already is, US General Ronald Clark said The likelihood of China invading Taiwan without contest is “very, very small” because the Taiwan Strait is under constant surveillance by multiple countries, a US general has said. General Ronald Clark, commanding officer of US Army Pacific (USARPAC), the US Army’s largest service component command, made the remarks during a dialogue hosted on Friday by Washington-based think tank the Center for Strategic and International Studies. Asked by the event host what the Chinese military has learned from its US counterpart over the years, Clark said that the first lesson is that the skill and will of US service members are “unmatched.” The second
STANDING TOGETHER: Amid China’s increasingly aggressive activities, nations must join forces in detecting and dealing with incursions, a Taiwanese official said Two senior Philippine officials and one former official yesterday attended the Taiwan International Ocean Forum in Taipei, the first high-level visit since the Philippines in April lifted a ban on such travel to Taiwan. The Ocean Affairs Council hosted the two-day event at the National Taiwan University Hospital International Convention Center. Philippine Navy spokesman Rear Admiral Roy Vincent Trinidad, Coast Guard spokesman Grand Commodore Jay Tarriela and former Philippine Presidential Communications Office assistant secretary Michel del Rosario participated in the forum. More than 100 officials, experts and entrepreneurs from 15 nations participated in the forum, which included discussions on countering China’s hybrid warfare
MORE DEMOCRACY: The only solution to Taiwan’s current democratic issues involves more democracy, including Constitutional Court rulings and citizens exercising their civil rights , Lai said The People’s Republic of China (PRC) is not the “motherland” of the Republic of China (ROC) and has never owned Taiwan, President William Lai (賴清德) said yesterday. The speech was the third in a series of 10 that Lai is scheduled to deliver across Taiwan. Taiwan is facing external threats from China, Lai said at a Lions Clubs International banquet in Hsinchu. For example, on June 21 the army detected 12 Chinese aircraft, eight of which entered Taiwanese waters, as well as six Chinese warships that remained in the waters around Taiwan, he said. Beyond military and political intimidation, Taiwan
RSS