Ukraine targeted Moscow early Tuesday in what was likely its biggest drone attack on the Russian capital, reportedly killing at least one person. Authorities said the attack sparked fires and forced the suspension of flights and train services.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin reported that the largest attack by Ukrainian drones on the capital was repelled last night.
“The largest attack of enemy drones on Moscow was repelled. 74 UAVs approaching Moscow and hundreds of combat UAVs in total at different points were shot down. We thank the air defense forces of the Aerospace Forces of the Russian Federation Ministry of Defense for their excellent work,” Sobyanin wrote.
In the morning hours, operations at four airports in the Moscow air hub were limited, and trains were also disrupted from Domodedovo due to damage to the railway infrastructure.
Russia’s aviation watchdog said flights were suspended at all four of Moscow’s airports. Two other airports in the Yaroslavl and Nizhny Novgorod regions east of Moscow were also closed. At least seven flats in a multi-storey building in the Ramenskoye district, about 50km southeast of the Kremlin, were damaged and residents had to be evacuated, Vorobyov said.
Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said Ukraine carried out the attack ahead of a visit to the Russian capital by the secretary general of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE). “This is not the first time that a visit by a high-level foreign delegation to Moscow has been accompanied by an attack by Ukrainian armed forces using drones,” Zakharova wrote online.
