Russia denounced this Tuesday a new Ukrainian attack with drones that were heading towards Moscow. The air defense systems of the Russian capital shot down two drones near the Vnukovo airport, in the southwest of the city, forcing flights to be delayed for a few hours.
According to the Ministry of Defense, its systems shot down a total of five drones in the territories of New Moscow and in the province of the same name. “This morning, an attempt by the Kyiv regime to carry out a terrorist attack involving five UAVs against objects in Moscow Oblast and New Moscow was thwarted,” department spokesman Lt. Gen. Igor said in a statement. Konashenkov.
The mayor of Moscow, Sergei Sobyanin, assured that there were no casualties or injuries. “At this moment, the air defense forces have repelled the attacks. All detected drones have been shot down,” the councilor said in a message posted on his Telegram channel.
Two of the attacking drones were intercepted near Valuevo, a town located in “New Moscow” or “Greater Moscow”, which are territories that were transferred to the Russian capital in 2012 in the largest project to expand the Russian capital. It is located just 30 kilometers southwest of the Kremlin.
The town, with less than 500 inhabitants, is only five kilometers from the Vnukovo airport, so it was decided to interrupt the activity and several flights had to be delayed.
The Telegram channel Mash has posted eyewitness videos showing a cloud of smoke.
According to the RBK newspaper portal, the delays occurred after five in the morning. International flights from Sharm el Sheikh (Egypt) and Dubai (Emirates), or national flights from Makhachkala, Chaliábinsk and Novosibirsk, were referred to the other airports in the capital. Another plane, from Ankara (Turkey), was circling the Moscow sky for just over an hour, according to data from the Flightradar service.
The Telegram channels 112 and Baza reported that around four in the morning a kamikaze drone hit an administrative building on the territory of one of the military installations in Kubinka, a city of 22,000 inhabitants in the Moscow Region 63 kilometers west of the capital, without causing any damage or destruction.
According to Tass, another drone was shot down in Kaluga Oblast. The news agency explains that all the drones were of the helicopter type and were suppressed by means of electronic warfare.
The Baza Telegram channel writes that in Kaluga several witnesses reported two airplane-type drones flying at an altitude of 200 m in the direction of Moscow.
The spokeswoman for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, María Zajárova, denounced in the same messaging application that the drone attack occurred in areas where there is civilian infrastructure, including the aforementioned airport.
“The international community must realize that the United States, the United Kingdom and France, permanent members of the UN Security Council, finance the terrorist regime,” he accused.
There was no immediate comment from Kyiv authorities. Ukraine almost never publicly claims responsibility for attacks inside Russia or on Russian-controlled Ukrainian territory.
On May 30, Moscow already suffered an attack by drones, causing damage to several residential buildings. Weeks earlier, Russia accused Ukraine of having tried to kill Vladimir Putin when the Kremlin itself was attacked, a fact denied by the office of Ukrainian President Volodimir Zelensky.
