Russian authorities said they destroyed two attack drones targeting central Moscow on Monday morning in what they called a strike by Ukrainian forces. No one was injured, they said. There was no immediate comment from Ukraine.
At least two non-residential buildings were targeted at about 4 am local time, mayor Sergei Sobyanin of Moscow said on his Telegram account, adding that there was no “serious damage or casualties”. The Russian ministry of defence said earlier that it had used electronic defences to disable the drones.
Authorities blocked off part of Komsomolsky Prospect, an avenue that runs through one of the most upscale parts of central Moscow, after finding one of the drones there, state media reported. One of the buildings is located about a block away from the Russian National Defence Management Center, an imposing structure that is being used to conduct “centralised combat management of the Russian armed forces”, according to the defence ministry’s website.
Smoke was rising from the top floors of a high-rise building in a complex for Leroy Merlin, a French home improvement store. Other footage shows damage to several structures along Komsomolsky Prospect — which is close to the Russian defence 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 visuals whether drones caused the damage.
Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, the fighting has been concentrated on the front lines in eastern Ukraine. Russia has fired missiles and drones at cities across Ukraine nearly every day while Russian cities, including Moscow, have been spared the violence of the war.
But in May, the relative safety of Moscow was shattered when the full first-scale drone attacks were launched on the capital, which is nearly 800km from the border with Ukraine. In early May, there were two drone explosions over the Kremlin, piercing the aura of relative safety.
New York Times News Service
