Moscow attacked by drones while Kyiv bombed for the third day in a row

Moscow was attacked by several drones on Tuesday morning, Russian officials said, exposing the capital’s vulnerability to retaliation for President Vladimir Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

The barrage shortly after dawn came as Russia launched another wave of air strikes on Kiev, killing at least one person, hospitalizing others and forcing the evacuation of a skyscraper, in the fourth attack in three days on the Ukrainian capital.

In Moscow, two people sustained minor injuries after a number of drones crashed into residential buildings in the southwest of the city, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said.

The Russian Defense Ministry said Ukraine used eight drones in the attack, but none hit their targets. He claimed to have shot down five drones outside Moscow with Pantsir anti-aircraft systems and crashed the other three after jamming their control systems.

Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for the attack, which would mark one of its biggest drone attacks on Russia since war and demonstrate Kiev’s growing capabilities to strike deep behind enemy lines in Russia.

Kiev embarked on a campaign aimed at stoking fear and weakening the Russian army before a expected counteroffensiveaccording to Ukrainian officials.

“If the aim of the assault was to stress the population, then the fact that Ukrainian drones appeared in the skies over Moscow has already done enough,” wrote Rybar, a popular pro-war blogger on the social media app. Telegram media.

Videos on social media showed drones flying low over the Russian capital, with one exploding over Rublyovka, an affluent suburb home to much of Russia’s political elite. Others showed damage after three drones crashed into residential buildings.

The Ukrainian Air Force said it shot down 29 of 31 Iranian-made Shahed drones launched from Russia on Tuesday as explosions rang out and prompted residents to run for cover. Drone drones could be heard flying over central Kiev before dawn, followed by wall-shaking explosions from air defense systems knocking unmanned vehicles out of the sky.

Airstrikes have become a regular occurrence in Kiev since Russia began targeting civilian infrastructure with mass airstrikes last fall. Tuesday’s assault was the 17th on the capital in May alone after Ukraine’s strength shot down dozens of ballistic cruise missiles and drones over Kiev in the early hours of Sunday and Monday.

Kyiv city authorities reported damage to residential buildings and said a high-rise apartment in Holosiivskyi district had been evacuated following a fire caused by falling drone debris. One person was killed and a 27-year-old woman was hospitalized.

Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ignat said NATO-grade air defense systems, including the Patriot system made in the USAit had been used to defend the capital in recent days.

A Financial Times reporter observed the Patriot system shoot down a missile during the morning rush hour on Monday. Debris from several missiles fell on the tops of buildings and on the streets of the capital.

The attacks in Russia have brought the war back in recent months to a capital that had been largely sealed off from its effects.

In early May, two drones attacked the Kremlin in a daring night raid, one exploding directly above its medieval onion domes and the other crashing into a building.

Also two Ukrainian-backed militias led by anti-Putin Russian neo-Nazis conducted a short cross-border attack last week.

Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for any of the attacks and has denied involvement in the drone strikes on the Kremlin.

Experts said the assault was likely to have been launched from close to Moscow, given the small drones used and their different directions.

But Russian pro-war commentators, citing video footage and snippet images, suggested that Ukraine could launch the drones from the central and eastern border areas from which Moscow withdrew last year after a series of humiliating defeats.

“This once again raises the question of whether it was justified to withdraw our troops from the Chernihiv and Sumy regions a year ago and leave a buffer zone north of Kharkiv last fall,” Rybar wrote. “It also questions our reconnaissance in border areas and enemy activity in those regions.”