Ukraine struck the Moscow region on Tuesday in its biggest drone attack so far on the Russian capital, killing at least one woman, wrecking dozens of homes and forcing around 50 flights to be diverted from airports around Moscow.
Russia, the world’s biggest nuclear power, said it destroyed at least 20 Ukrainian attack drones as they swarmed over the Moscow region, which has a population of more than 21 million, and 124 more over eight other regions.
At least one person was killed near Moscow, Russian authorities said. Three of Moscow’s four airports were closed for more than six hours and almost 50 flights were diverted.
Kyiv said Russia, which sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022, had attacked it overnight with 46 drones, of which 38 were destroyed.
The drone attacks on Russia damaged at high-rise apartment buildings in the Ramenskoye district of the Moscow region, setting flats on fire, residents told Reuters.
A 46-year-old woman was killed and three people were wounded in Ramenskoye, Moscow regional governor Andrei Vorobyov said.
Residents said they awoke to blasts and fire.
“I looked at the window and saw a ball of fire,” Alexander Li, a resident of the district told Reuters. “The window got blown out by the shockwave.”
Georgy, a resident who declined to give his surname, said he heard a drone buzzing outside his building in the early hours.
“I drew back the curtain and it hit the building right before my eyes, I saw it all,” he said. “I took my family and we ran outside.”
The Ramenskoye district, some 50 km (31 miles) southeast of the Kremlin, has a population of around quarter a million of people, according to official data.
More than 70 drones were also downed over Russia’s Bryansk region and tens more over other regions, Russia’s defense ministry said. There was no damage or casualties reported there.
Drone war
As Russia advances in eastern Ukraine, Kyiv has taken the war to Russia with a cross-border attack in Russia’s western Kursk region that began on Aug. 6 and by carrying out increasingly large drone attacks deep into Russian territory.
The war has largely been a grinding artillery and drone war along the 1,000 km (620 mile) heavily fortified front line in southern and eastern Ukraine involving hundreds of thousands of soldiers.
Moscow and Kyiv have both sought to buy and develop new drones, deploy them in innovative ways, and seek new ways to destroy them – from shotguns to advanced electronic jamming systems.
Both sides have turned cheap commercial drones into deadly weapons while ramping up their own production and assembly to attack targets including tanks, energy infrastructure such as refineries and airfields.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has sought to insulate Moscow from the grinding rigors of the war, says the Ukrainian drone attacks are “terrorism” as they target civilian infrastructure – and has vowed a response.
Moscow and other big Russian cities have largely been insulated from the war.
Russia has hit Ukraine with thousands of missiles and drones in the last two-and-a-half years, killing thousands of civilians, wrecking much of the country’s energy system and damaging commercial and residential properties across the country.
Ukraine says it has a right to strike back deep into Russia, though Kyiv’s Western backers have said they do not want a direct confrontation between Russia and the U.S.-led NATO military alliance.
There was no immediate comment from Ukraine about Tuesday’s attacks. Both sides deny targeting civilians.
Tuesday’s attack follow drone attacks Ukraine launched in early September targeting chiefly Russia’s energy and power facilities.
Authorities of the Tula region, which neighbors the Moscow region to its north, said drone wreckage fell onto a fuel and energy facility but the “technological process” of the facility was not affected.