CNN –
Ukrainian forces carried out the drone strikes in Moscow early Monday, a Kiev official told CNN.
The official from Ukraine’s Defense Intelligence Service, a branch of Ukraine’s Defense Ministry, said the intelligence agency was responsible for the operation, which Russia dubbed a “terrorist attack by the Kiev regime,” using Russian spelling for Ukraine’s capital.
The officer spoke on condition of anonymity as he had not been given permission to speak publicly about the incident.
The Ukrainian Minister for Digital Transformation also complained about the attack. Mykhailo Fedorov, whose ministry is overseeing his country’s procurement plan for the “army of drones,” claimed there would be more attacks.
According to Russian authorities, the drones attacked two non-residential buildings in the Russian capital – including one near the Defense Ministry’s headquarters – in the early hours of Monday morning and said they had “foiled” the attack.
The attacks did not cause any serious damage or casualties, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin told Telegram on Monday – but the incident will serve as a reminder of the reach of Kiev’s drones as Ukraine seeks to bring the war closer to home for the Russians.
The Russian Defense Ministry said two drones “were suppressed by means of electronic warfare and crashed.”
“On the morning of July 24, an attempt by the Kiev regime to launch a terrorist attack using two unmanned aerial vehicles against facilities on the territory of the city of Moscow was foiled,” the ministry said on Telegram.
Social media footage of the aftermath, confirmed by CNN, showed damage to the Russian Defense Ministry complex.
Damage housing the ministry’s military orchestra can be seen in one of the footage geolocated by CNN. It wasn’t immediately clear if the drones were to blame.
According to several Western sources, the area is also home to Russia’s foreign intelligence agency, known as GRU, Unit 26165, which conducts cyber activities. It is also close to the Department of Defense’s National Defense Management Center.
Later Monday morning, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that Russia’s air defenses had worked successfully.
“All drones have been neutralized today and action is being taken,” Peskow said. “As for the development of the defense system and its more intensive work, this is a question of the Ministry of Defense.”
Shamil Shumatov/Portal
A police officer blocks a street after a reported drone strike in central Moscow July 24, 2023.
According to Russian state media TASS, a drone struck a high-rise business center on Likhacheva Avenue in Moscow, dumping drone debris onto Komsomolsky Avenue.
Law enforcement and emergency services are currently working at the scene, and traffic on Komsomolsky Avenue from the city center towards the affected region has been closed, according to TASS, citing Moscow’s Ministry of Transport and Road Infrastructure Development. CNN has not been able to independently verify the reports.
A local resident who was in the area at the time of the attack told Portal she was asleep and was woken up by an explosion.
“Everything started to tremble. It felt like the whole building had collapsed. I looked out the window, I live (in the annexe) on the side where there is less damage. And it felt strange – the damage was so minor,” said the resident, who gave her name to Polina.
“It sounded worse than it looked because it seemed like the whole mall had exploded,” she added.
A second resident, who identified himself to Portal as Sergei, said he heard a bang “and then nothing”.
“We didn’t see anything fly even though the windows were open … and we should have heard the sound (of something flying) but no, nothing,” he said.
The Russian Defense Ministry also accused Ukraine on Monday of firing 17 drones into Russian-held Crimea overnight. The drones were shot down by the air defenses without any casualties, the ministry said.
Maxim Shemetov/Portal
An employee of the security service guards a damaged building in the Russian capital on Monday.
The reported attacks came after Russian missiles severely damaged a historic Orthodox cathedral in the southern Ukrainian port city of Odessa, sparking outrage and prompting Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy to swear retaliation.
02:27 – Source: CNN
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At least one person was killed and several others injured in the attacks in Odessa, Ukrainian officials said. This is the latest in a wave of attacks on the port city. The attacks also destroyed other historical buildings, Ukraine’s Ministry of Culture said.
Kiev almost never publicly claims responsibility for attacks that have taken place on Russian soil or in Russian-held territories in the course of the war that Moscow began when it launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February last year.
Ukraine denied direct involvement in a drone attack on Moscow in May that damaged two buildings and injured two people.
Earlier this month, Russia said it had “destroyed or neutralized” five Ukrainian drones, also calling it a “terrorist” attack.
According to the Ukrainian army, Russian drones attacked Ukraine’s port infrastructure on the Danube on Monday night, targeting Ukrainian grain stocks.
Six people were injured in the attack, Oleh Kiper, head of the Odessa regional military administration, said on Telegram.
The Ukrainian army also said that a grain hangar was destroyed and storage tanks for other types of cargo were damaged.