Another unmanned combat aircraft had to be shot down over Moscow on Friday before it did any damage. It is the third day in a row that Ukrainian drones have targeted the Russian capital, although Russian air defenses intercepted the previous ones before they reached the city.
As a result of the presence of the device, the Russian authorities decreed the temporary closure of two airports, that of Vnukovo, in the southwest of Moscow, and that of the neighboring region of Kaluga, 150 kilometers from the Russian capital.
Vnukovo announced the suspension of flights “for reasons beyond the control of the airport”, saying that some of these flights had been redirected to other airports in the Moscow region. These restrictions were lifted at 10:50 in the morning, one hour less in Barcelona, ??at which time it returned to “operating normally”.
Before the Russian authorities confirmed the removal of the threat, residents of the Khoroshiovo-Mniovniki district in northwest Moscow heard an explosion.
According to the mayor of the city, Sergei Sobyanin, there was only one drone in the attack this Friday. In the previous two days, the Russian Ministry of Defense reported the destruction of two drones each time.
“Debris (from the device) has fallen in the area of ????the Karamishev embankment, no one was injured,” “there is no serious damage,” Sobyanin wrote on Telegram. Remains of the drone were found on the territory of a hospital.
The Defense Ministry blamed the attack, which it described as “terrorist”, on Ukraine, against whom Russia launched its army in February 2022 in what the Kremlin calls a “special military operation”. The attack “was suppressed by means of electronic warfare and crashed in a forest in the west of the city of Moscow,” it said in a statement.
On Thursday Russia said it had killed two drones headed for Moscow, along with 13 others that Ukraine reportedly launched against Sevastopol, the largest city on the annexed Crimean peninsula and home to Russia’s Black Sea Fleet.
Ukraine does not usually comment on or acknowledge attacks carried out on Russian territory.
