Moscow’s anti-aircraft defense systems were activated at dawn on Wednesday to protect the Russian capital from Ukrainian combat drones, in a maneuver that has become very frequent in recent weeks. As a result, they shot down two drones approaching the city, reported the mayor, Sergei Sobyanin.
According to the Moscow councilor, “one (was shot down) in the Domodedovo area”, on the southern outskirts of the city and where one of the largest Russian international airports is located, while the second fell near the Minsk highway. , west of the capital. The Russian Defense Ministry later confirmed that “air defense destroyed two drones”, without causing any damage or casualties.
In its statement, the ministry accused Kyiv of trying to “carry out a terrorist attack” against Moscow.
The incident came two days after a Russian missile attack on Pokrovsk, which Russia calls Krasnoarmeisk. The Russian army said it had struck a Ukrainian military command center in that Donbass city. Kyev claimed the Russian target was civilian buildings with a double bombardment that killed nine people and wounded 82, according to the latest figures released Tuesday night by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
Residents of Moscow reported this Wednesday that they had heard loud noises around three in the morning, according to the website of the RBK newspaper.
At the end of July and beginning of August, attempts to attack Moscow with drones have become more frequent.
According to Kremlin spokesman Dimitri Peskov, Ukraine uses this type of weapon because it is unable to succeed with its counteroffensive on the battlefield. He also assured that Russia is strengthening security measures and increasing protection against these attacks both in Moscow and in other regions.
The last time a drone was shot down as it approached the Russian capital was on the morning of Sunday, August 6.
On July 30 and August 1, these devices managed to hit towers in Moscow-City, the city’s financial district, where the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Economic Development and the Ministry of Industry and Commerce are located.
Zelensky warned Russia on July 30: “War is gradually returning to Russian territory, to its symbolic centers and military bases, and this is an inevitable, natural and absolutely just process.”
A week earlier, two drones damaged buildings in other neighborhoods of the Russian capital.
More vulnerable than Moscow to the arrival of drones from Ukrainian territory are other Russian regions closer to the border. Only on August 7, the Russian defenses destroyed several of these devices in the Kaluga oblast, 200 kilometers southeast of Moscow; Oryol and Belgorod. The next day a drone landed in the Kursk Oblast, bordering, like Belgorod, to Ukraine.
