Moscow region hit in sixth straight night of Ukrainian drone attacks
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Officers stand next to a damaged building of the Moscow International Business Centre following a drone attack in Moscow on Aug 23.
PHOTO: AFP
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MOSCOW – A Ukrainian drone attack on Moscow damaged a building in a central business district, the authorities said on Wednesday, in the sixth straight night of aerial attacks on Russia’s capital region.
Russia and Ukraine have hit each other’s cities with drones during the conflict, with Ukraine’s troops now bogged down in a grinding counter-offensive.
The latest assault on Moscow comes hours after Ukrainian authorities said Russian artillery hit two villages near the eastern Ukraine city of Lyman, killing three people and wounding two.
The Moscow region, hundreds of kilometres from the front line, has been repeatedly targeted in recent weeks, although there have been no reports of major damage.
Air defences downed one Ukrainian drone in the Mozhaisky district and one in the Khimki district of the Moscow region, Russia’s defence ministry said.
A third drone crashed into a building in the Moscow City business district around 5km from the Kremlin after it was “suppressed” by air defences, it added.
Air traffic at Moscow’s Vnukovo, Sheremetyevo and Domodedovo airports was briefly halted, Tass news agency reported.
Footage posted to Telegram by Russian daily newspaper Izvestia showed a fire truck and other emergency services vehicles lined up along a street below a cluster of brightly-lit skyscrapers.
One window on a multi-storey building appeared to be damaged.
Emergency services were inspecting the area in the business district, Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Telegram.
“Several windows were smashed in two adjacent five-storey buildings,” he added.
A woman inspects the damage sustained by a building of the Moscow International Business Centre following a drone attack in Moscow on Aug 23.
PHOTO: AFP
Mr Sobyanin and the defence ministry said there were no reports of casualties.
The RIA Novosti news agency reported an “explosion” was heard in the business district. “A little later, smoke rose from the buildings in the same area.”
In recent weeks, two other drone attacks were repelled over Moscow’s financial district, each causing minor damage to the facades of high-rise buildings.
In May, drones were shot down near the Kremlin.
Air and sea
Russia and Ukraine have also ramped up attacks in the Black Sea since the July collapse of a UN-brokered deal which aimed to ensure safe navigation for civilian grain shipments from Ukraine ports.
Moscow said on Tuesday that it destroyed two Ukrainian military boats in the strategic waterway, including one carrying troops.
Russia also said that it dispatched two fighter jets to intercept two drones over the Black Sea, without specifying which country deployed them.
The incidents came after the first civilian cargo ship sailing through the Black Sea from Ukraine recently arrived in Istanbul in defiance of the Russian blockade.
Since exiting the deal, Moscow has pounded Ukraine’s southern Odesa and Mykolaiv regions that are home to ports and infrastructure vital for shipment of grain.
Kyiv has attacked Russian ships in its waters and the Crimean Peninsula, which was annexed by Moscow in 2014.
Early on Wednesday, Ukrainian authorities issued an air warning for the Odesa region, according to the head of the local administration. AFP
