A Ukrainian drone attack on Moscow damaged a building in a central business district, in the sixth straight night of aerial attacks on the region, as Russia targeted Ukrainian ports in the southern Odesa region and the Danube River area, authorities from both countries said yesterday.
The latest assault on Moscow comes after Ukrainian authorities said Russian artillery hit two villages near the eastern Ukrainan city of Lyman, killing three people and wounding two others.
The Moscow region, hundreds of kilometers from the front line, has been repeatedly targeted in recent weeks, although there have been no reports of major damage.
Photo: Reuters
Air defenses downed one Ukrainian drone in Mozhaisky district and one in Khimki district of Moscow region, the Russian Ministry of Defense said in a statement.
A third drone crashed into a building in Moscows business district, about 5km from the Kremlin after being “suppressed” by air defenses, it said.
Air traffic at Moscow’s Vnukovo, Sheremetyevo and Domodedovo airports was briefly halted, Russian state news agency TASS said.
Agence France-Presse images showed emergency service vehicles lined up along a street below a cluster of brightly-lit skyscrapers. One window on a multistory building had been blown out and black scorch marks surrounded its frame.
Emergency services were inspecting the area in the business district, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on the Telegram messaging app.
“Several windows were smashed in two adjacent five-story buildings,” he said.
Sobyanin and the Russian defense ministry said there were no reports of casualties.
In Khimki district, the wreckage of a downed drone had partially collapsed the roof of a private house and damaged a non-residential building, the RIA Novosti news agency reported.
There were no casualties, it said.
Russia’s overnight drone attacks set at least one grain storage facility on fire, Ukraine’s military and local authorities said yesterday.
The attacks were Russia’s latest on port infrastructure on the Danube, which Ukraine uses to move grain to the Romanian port of Constanta, since Moscow quit a UN-brokered deal that allowed Kyiv to ship grain via the Black Sea.
“The enemy hit grain storage facilities and a production and transhipment complex in the Danube region. A fire broke out in the warehouses and was quickly contained. Firefighters continue to work,” the Ukrainian military said in a post on Telegram.
The military published photographs showing piles of grain under the burnt and wrecked shell of the storage facility.
Odesa Governor Oleh Kiper said the attack on the region lasted three hours and that the Ukrainian air force had destroyed nine Russian drones.
“Unfortunately, there were hits to the production and transhipment complexes where a fire broke out... The damage includes grain storage facilities,” Kiper said on Telegram.
Ukrainian air defenses said later yesterday that it had shot down 11 out of 20 drones launched by Russia overnight.
An industry source told Reuters that Ukrainian Danube ports were the main targets.
Ukraine operates two major ports on Danube — Izmail and Reni.
The Danube ports accounted for about a quarter of Ukrainian grain exports before Russia pulled out of the deal to provide safe passage for the export of Ukrainian grain via the Black Sea last month.
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