Several drones were intercepted in the Moscow region early Tuesday, including near an airport, Russian officials said, blaming Ukraine for the latest aerial incursion targeting the political and economic heart of Russia.
Moscow’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, said the attacks were aimed at suburban Moscow and the Moscow region and had all been shot down by air defenses. There were no injuries or deaths, he added.
It appeared to be the first such attack since May, when two waves of drones got close to the Kremlin and hit civilian areas, bringing conflict stemming from the war in Ukraine to Russia’s political and economic heart. Russia said Ukraine was behind the attacks, while Kyiv denied involvement.
The Russian Foreign Ministry condemned what it said was “the Kyiv regime’s attempt to attack an area where civilian infrastructure is located, including an airport, which, incidentally, also serves international flights.”
Flights to Vnukovo Airport, on the southwestern outskirts of the capital, were temporarily diverted Tuesday morning out of security concerns, the mayor said. Earlier, Russian state media reported that some of the drones had been intercepted in the village of Valuevo in the suburban area of New Moscow, near the airport, citing emergency services.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said five drones had been intercepted Tuesday morning. Four were shot down by air defense systems and one was intercepted by electronic jamming, then crashed in the Odintsovo district in the suburbs of Moscow, the ministry said. Falling debris from one sparked a fire at an outbuilding at a farm, according to the state news agency Tass.
The Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitri S. Peskov, said that all the attack drones aimed at Moscow were shot down, implying an effective response from the city’s air defense systems.
On May 3, two drones were flown toward the Kremlin, causing little damage. U.S. officials said it was probably orchestrated by one of Ukraine’s special military or intelligence units. On May 30, at least eight drones targeted areas in and around the capital, the first strike to hit civilian areas.
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