A damaged building after a drone attack in Moscow on Monday.Credit: Maxim Shemetov/Portal
Russian authorities said they destroyed two attack drones aimed at central Moscow in an attack by Ukrainian forces on Monday morning. No one was injured, it said. There was no immediate comment from Ukraine.
At least two non-residential buildings were attacked around 4 a.m. local time, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on his Telegram account, adding that there had been no “serious damage or casualties”. The Russian Defense Ministry previously said it had used electronic defenses to disable the drones.
Authorities closed part of Komsomolsky Prospekt, an avenue that runs through one of the poshest parts of central Moscow, after finding one of the drones there, state media reported. One of the buildings is about a block from Russia’s National Defense Management Center, an imposing structure used for the “central warfare of the Russian armed forces,” according to the Defense Ministry’s website.
Videos confirmed by the New York Times show damage in at least two locations near the Moskva River in the southern part of the city.
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According to state media, the attack on Moscow’s buildings caused traffic delays on at least two major roads.CreditCredit…Portal
Smoke rose from the top floors of a high-rise building in a complex of French hardware store Leroy Merlin. Other footage shows damage to several buildings along Komsomolsky Prospect – which is near the Russian Defense Ministry – including the building of the Military University and the Central Military Band, a performance group of the Russian Armed Forces. It was not possible to determine from the images whether drones caused the damage.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, fighting has focused on the front lines in eastern Ukraine. Russia has fired missiles and drones at cities across Ukraine on an almost daily basis, while Russian cities, including Moscow, have escaped the violence of the war.
But in May, Moscow’s relative security was shaken when large-scale drone strikes began on the capital, nearly 800 kilometers from the border with Ukraine and even further from the frontline.
Investigators were at the site of the damaged building in Moscow on Monday. Source: Maxim Shemetov/Portal
In early May, two drone explosions occurred over the Kremlin, piercing the aura of relative safety in the Russian capital. On May 31, the Russian Defense Ministry said at least eight drones had attacked the capital and the surrounding region. Russia claimed to have intercepted them all, but three residential buildings were damaged after the drones were stopped. It was the first damage to civilian areas in Moscow since the war began.
Ukraine has maintained a policy of not commenting on attacks inside Russia that appear to be linked to its military or supporters, arguing that the silence allows it to maintain the element of surprise and military advantage. But on Sunday President Volodymyr Zelenskyy promised retaliatory measures against Russia after a week of deadly attacks on Odessa that targeted civilians, infrastructure and port facilities vital to grain exports. Ukraine has begun to publicly acknowledge the attacks in Crimea, the peninsula Russia illegally annexed in 2014, arguing that the attacks took place on Ukrainian territory.
Shawn Paik and Jin Yu Young contributed coverage.
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