Russia blames Ukraine for overnight drone attacks that damaged Moscow buildings

Three Ukrainian drones were destroyed over Moscow early on Sunday, Russia’s defence ministry said, in an attack that briefly closed the capital’s Vnukovo airport for arrivals and departures, with flights redirected to other airports.

The operations, however, appeared to have returned to normal within less than an hour.

While one drone was destroyed on the city’s outskirts by air defence systems, the other two were “suppressed by electronic warfare” and eventually crashed into an office complex after losing control, the ministry said on Telegram.

A security guard sustained injuries in the incident, Russia’s state news agency TASS cited emergency officials as saying. Revealing the overnight attack, Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin posted on Telegram: “Facades of two city office towers were slightly damaged.”

Moscow Blaming Kyiv For A Series Of Recent Drone Assaults

The capital and its surrounding area are over 500km from the Ukrainian border, but have been the targets of a number of drone attacks this year. The Sunday incident is the latest in a series of drone assaults that Moscow has blamed on Kyiv.

While Ukraine is yet to post any comments, the war-ravaged nation typically declines to claim responsibility for attacks on Russia. The recent strikes come several weeks into a prominent Ukrainian counteroffensive to get back territory Moscow captured in an invasion raging since February 2022.

On Friday, Russia said it had taken care of two Ukrainian missiles, with at least 16 people wounded by debris falling on Taganrog, a city of about 250,000 people. Regions bordering Ukraine have regularly faced drone attacks and shelling, but have rarely been targeted by missiles.

On the other side of the border, a Russian missile attack on Saturday evening on the city of Sumy in the north-east killed at least one civilian, according to national police, who put the number of injured individuals at five.