- Drones were used to attack Moscow and surrounding areas.
- Officials said minor damage was reported.
- Drone attacks in Moscow are rare.
The Russian capital and its surrounding areas were targeted by rare drone attacks on Tuesday morning, causing “minor” damage to buildings and no casualties, officials said.
Russian forces had fired a barrage of missiles at Kyiv on Monday, sending panicked residents running for shelter in an unusual daytime attack on the Ukrainian capital following overnight strikes.
“This morning, at dawn, a drone attack caused minor damage to several buildings. All the city’s emergency services are on the scene… No one has been seriously injured so far,” Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said.
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Russia’s defence ministry accused Ukraine on Tuesday of a “terrorist attack”, saying it had intercepted all of the eight Ukrainian drones aimed at Moscow.
“This morning the Kyiv regime carried out a terrorist attack with drones on targets in the city of Moscow. Eight drones were used in the attack. All of the enemy drones were downed,” the ministry said on social media.
Andrei Vorobyov, the governor of the Moscow region, said many drones had been downed near the capital.
“This morning, the residents of certain districts in the Moscow region could hear explosions, it was our anti-air missile defence system,” he wrote.
Urging residents to keep calm, he wrote:
Several drones were shot down while approaching Moscow.
He added that “all rescue services are doing their work.”
Moscow, located more than 1 000km from Ukraine, has only rarely been targeted by drone attacks since the start of the conflict in Ukraine, even though such attacks have become more common elsewhere in Russia.
Images posted on social media showed traces of smoke in the sky. Others showed a broken window.
Sobyanin said the residents of two buildings damaged in Tuesday’s strikes had been evacuated and added that they “can return to their apartments once the special services have finished their work”.
In early May, two drones were shot down over the Kremlin in an attack blamed on Ukraine.
