Three drones have been shot down over Moscow, Russia’s defence ministry said, as Volodymyr Zelenskiy warned that the war was coming to Russia.
The attacks, which Ukraine did not directly acknowledge in keeping with its security policy, reflected a pattern of more frequent and deeper cross-border strikes Kyiv has launched since starting a counteroffensive against Russian forces in June. The most dramatic strike was in May on the Kremlin itself.
Sunday’s was the fourth such strike on the capital region this month and the third this week, showing Moscow’s vulnerability as Russia’s war in Ukraine drags into its 18th month.
The Russian defence ministry said three drones targeted the city in an “attempted terrorist attack by the Kyiv regime”. Air defences shot down one drone in Odintsovo in the surrounding Moscow region, while two others were jammed and crashed into the Moscow City business district.
Photos and video showed that a drone had ripped off part of the facade of a modern skyscraper, IQ-Quarter, located 3.4 miles (5.5km) from the Kremlin. When the drone hit, sparks, flames and smoke emerged from the building, with debris falling on the pavement and street. Windows were blown out, and metal window frames were mangled. A security guard was injured, Russia’s state news agency Tass reported, citing emergency officials. The Ria-Novosti news agency reported that the building’s tenants included several government agencies.
Flights were temporarily suspended at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport, and the airspace over Moscow and the outlying regions was temporarily closed.
Vladimir Putin, who was in his home town of St Petersburg for meetings with African leaders and a naval celebration, was briefed, his spokesperson said.
Although Ukraine has not acknowledged the attacks, Zelenskiy said in his nightly video address: “Gradually, the war is returning to the territory of Russia – to its symbolic centres and military bases. This is an inevitable, natural and absolutely fair process.”
A Ukrainian air force spokesman said the Russian people were seeing the consequences of Russia’s war in Ukraine.
“All of the people who think the war ‘doesn’t concern them’ – it’s already touching them,” Yurii Ihnat said on Sunday.
“There’s already a certain mood in Russia: that something is flying in, and loudly. There’s no discussion of peace or calm in the Russian interior any more. They got what they wanted.”
In the earlier attacks on Moscow, Russia’s defence ministry reported shooting down a Ukrainian drone outside the city on Friday. Four days earlier, two drones struck the Russian capital, one of them falling in the centre of the city near the defence ministry’s headquarters along the Moskva River about two miles from the Kremlin. The other drone hit an office building in southern Moscow, gutting several upper floors.
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