Overnight Ukrainian Drone Attack on Moscow, Zelensky Says ‘War Returning to Russia’
31 July, 2023 | Anamika Singh Parihar
Russian forces shot down three Ukrainian drones in Moscow, causing injuries, damage, and airport closure.
Three Ukrainian drones were shot down by Russian forces over Moscow, inflicting one injury, damaging two office buildings, and briefly forcing the closure of the city’s airport.
While Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky warned that “war was coming to the territory of Russia” without commenting on the drone attacks, the Russian defense ministry blamed Kyiv for the attack early on Sunday.
Images from the crash site showed a skyscraper’s exterior with damage to one story. The incident “insignificantly damaged” the exteriors of two buildings in the Moscow City area, according to the mayor of the city, Sergei Sobyanin.
According to TASS, no flights entered or left the southern airport of the city, Vnukovo for approximately an hour, and all aircraft were temporarily barred from the air space over Moscow and the surrounding areas.
Authorities also briefly stopped traffic on a street close to the incident site in the Moscow City region.
President Vladimir Putin was briefed, according to his spokeswoman, and was in his hometown of Saint Petersburg at the time of the attempted strikes for meetings with African leaders and a naval festival.
The Russian defense ministry claimed to have prevented a nighttime assault by 25 Ukrainian
drones that it either shot down or forced to crash on the Crimean peninsula in the Black Sea, which Russia annexed in 2014. It further stated that there had been no injuries or property damage in Crimea. Russian foreign ministry has also Claimed that such kind of attacks would only be possible with the help and support from the United States and its NATO allies.
In his video address, Zelensky stated that “gradually the war is returning to the territory of Russia -to its symbolic centers and military bases, and this is an inevitable, natural and fair process”. He further added,” Ukraine is getting stronger. “
Ukrainian officials refused to acknowledge the attack.
The attack was the third this week and the fourth of its kind this month. And it has increased worries about Moscow’s vulnerability to strikes as Russia’s war in Ukraine enters its 18th month.
Additionally, it comes after many weeks of the Ukrainian battle to retake territory that Russia has occupied since beginning a full-scale invasion in February 2022.