Drone attacks target Moscow, Crimea and Russia's Black Sea patrols

Drone attacks target Moscow, Crimea and Russia's Black Sea patrols

Moscow has blamed Kyiv for several drone assaults on border regions, Crimea and the capital

Russia said Tuesday it downed another wave of Ukrainian drones targeting Moscow, Crimea and vessels in the Black Sea, as a skyscraper in the capital's financial district was struck for the second time in days. 

On Monday, Russia said it would intensify its strikes on Ukrainian military infrastructure in response to drone attacks across its territory which it has blamed on Kyiv.

"Two Ukrainian (unmanned aerial vehicles) were destroyed by air defence systems over the territory of the Odintsovo and Narofominsk districts of Moscow region," the Russian defence ministry said. 

"Another drone was suppressed by electronic warfare and, having lost control, crashed on the territory of the Moscow City," the capital's high-rise business district, the ministry said.

On Sunday, Russian defences downed drones in that same district, with debris damaging two office towers, blowing out several windows and scattering documents on the pavement below.

"One flew into the same tower in (Moscow) City as last time," mayor Sergei Sobyanin said Tuesday on Telegram.

Sobyanin added that emergency services had gone to the scene and that there was no information on any casualties.

The strike damaged the facade of the building, which houses offices for a number of Russian government ministries, smashing a number of windows.

"We heard a big explosion, there was no panic," local resident Arkady Metler, 29, told AFP.

"Nobody should be scared... we cannot do anything but stick together," said Metler.

In a separate incident, Russian-installed authorities in Crimea said a Ukrainian drone was shot down over the peninsula, annexed by Moscow in 2014 and a regular target for Kyiv's forces.

"An explosion occurred on the ground, grass and bushes caught fire," Sevastopol's governor Mikhail Razvozhayev announced on Telegram.

- 'In shock' -

In Moscow, some residents were taken aback by the latest explosion in their neighbourhood. 

"After the last attack, everyone was saying 'they don't hit the same place twice'. But when we woke up this morning we were in shock," Anastasia Berseneva, 26, told AFP.

"I'm not sure whether I will move out or not but I'm thinking probably yes."

Shortly after the drone attack, Moscow's Vnukovo international airport was briefly closed, TASS state news agency reported.

The same airport, to the southwest of Moscow, was briefly closed after Sunday's strike, and earlier this month a volley of drone attacks disrupted air traffic at Vnukovo.

Moscow and its environs, about 500 kilometres (310 miles) from the Ukrainian border, had rarely been targeted during the conflict in Ukraine until several drone attacks this year.

The Russian defence ministry said Tuesday it also foiled a Ukrainian drone attack targeting patrol boats in the Black Sea.

- 'Act of desperation' -

"During the night, Ukrainian armed forces tried without success to attack with three drones the 'Sergei Kotov' and 'Vasily Bykov,' patrol boats of the Russian fleet," the defence ministry said in a statement.

The three drones were trained on the ships, navigating in waters 340 kilometres (210 miles) southwest of Sevastopol, the base of Russia's Black Sea fleet on the annexed Crimea peninsula.

Tuesday's attacks were the latest in a series of drone assaults -- including on the Kremlin and Russian towns near the border with Ukraine -- that Moscow has blamed on Kyiv.

On Monday, a missile strike on a residential building killed six and wounded dozens in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky's hometown of Kryvyi Rig.

Without mentioning a particular attack, Zelensky warned Sunday that the conflict was coming to Russia.

"Gradually, the war is returning to the territory of Russia -- to its symbolic centres and military bases, and this is an inevitable, natural and absolutely fair process," Zelensky said.

The Kremlin on Monday called the recent strikes on the capital an "act of desperation" by Ukraine following setbacks on the battlefield. 

Ukraine began its long-awaited counteroffensive in June but has made modest advances in the face of stiff resistance from Russian forces on the frontline.

On the eastern front, Ukrainian forces had recorded "an increase in enemy shelling", deputy defence minister Ganna Malyar said on Telegram.

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