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.
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