- According to Russia, two Ukrainian drones attack Moscow
- No one reported injuries; damage not serious
- One hits near the Department of Defense headquarters
- Ukraine says there will be more such attacks
MOSCOW, July 24 (Portal) – Russia spoke of taking tough retaliatory measures against Ukraine after two drones damaged buildings in Moscow early Monday, including one near the Defense Ministry headquarters, in what it described as a brazen act of terrorism.
No one was injured in the attack, a senior Ukrainian official said there would be more, but a drone struck near the Moscow building where the Russian military holds briefings on its so-called “military special operation,” a symbolic blow that underscores the range of such drones.
Nearby roads were temporarily closed, windows on the top two floors of an office building hit by a second drone in another Moscow district were blown out and debris littered the ground, said a Portal reporter monitoring the aftermath of the incident.
“I was sleeping and was woken up by an explosion, everything started shaking,” Polina, a young woman who lives near the high-rise, told Portal.
A third “helicopter-like drone” carrying no explosives crashed in a cemetery in a city outside Moscow, Russia’s foreign ministry said in a statement, promising to find and punish anyone responsible.
The Kremlin said it would continue its campaign in Ukraine and achieve all the objectives of an operation that Kiev and much of the West are calling a brutal war of conquest.
The Moscow drone strike, while not serious in terms of human cost and damage, was the most sensational of its kind since two drones reached the Kremlin in May.
A swarm of 17 drones also launched overnight attacks on Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, the Russian Defense Ministry said, adding it had deployed anti-drone equipment and anti-aircraft defenses to repel them. The Russian-installed Crimea chief said an ammunition dump was attacked and a residential building damaged.
“We consider what happened as another use of terrorist methods and intimidation of the civilian population by the military and political leadership of Ukraine,” the Foreign Ministry said of the drone strikes in Moscow and Crimea.
“The Russian Federation reserves the right to take harsh retaliatory measures.”
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, now Deputy Chairman of the Russian Security Council, said Moscow needs to broaden the range of targets attacked in Ukraine, adding unexpected and unconventional targets with high impact.
[1/5]A member of the security service examines the damaged building following a reported drone strike in Moscow, Russia, July 24. Portal/Maxim Shemetov
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, whose government rarely comments on attacks inside Russia or on Russian-controlled territory, promised “retaliation against Russian terrorists for Odessa” on Sunday.
It was a reference to days of deadly Russian rocket attacks on targets in the port city, which Moscow says were in retaliation for a Ukrainian attack on the Crimean bridge last week that killed the parents of a 14-year-old girl.
Kiev said on Monday that a Russian drone strike destroyed Ukrainian grain stores on the Danube and injured seven people.
“act of terrorism”
“Drones attacked the capital of ‘Orks’ and Crimea last night,” said Ukrainian Deputy Prime Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, using a derogatory term some Ukrainians use for Russians. “Electronic warfare and air defenses are already less able to defend the occupier’s skies.”
Fedorov, one of the officials spearheading Ukraine’s effort to create an “army of drones,” wrote on messaging app Telegram: “No matter what happens, there will be more.”
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces used radio-frequency equipment to disable the two Ukrainian drones, bringing them down and thwarting an attempted “terrorist attack”.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova told RTVI TV that Ukraine was guilty of an “act of international terrorism”.
Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said on his Telegram news app that around 4 a.m. (01:00 GMT) two non-residential buildings were hit, adding that there had been no serious damage or casualties.
Citing emergency services, state Russian news agencies reported that drone fragments were found near a building on Komsomolsky Avenue, which runs through Moscow. The site is near various Defense Ministry buildings, including some reportedly affiliated with Russia’s GRU military intelligence agency.
Russian news agencies reported that traffic was temporarily blocked on the street and on Likhachev Avenue, where an office tower was damaged.
Attention should now turn to where the drones were fired from and whether pro-Ukrainian saboteurs in Russia played a role. After the drone attack on the Kremlin in May, US drone experts concluded they may have been launched from inside Russia.
Reporting by Andrew Osborn in Moscow; Additional reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Adaptation by Simon Cameron-Moore, David Holmes, Bernadette Baum and Nick Macfie
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