MOSCOW: Ukraine attacked Moscow on Sunday with at least 32 drones, the biggest drone strike on the Russian capital since the start of the war in 2022, forcing flights to be diverted from three of the city’s major airports and injuring at least one person.
Russian air defences shot down 32 drones flying towards Moscow over the Ramenskoye and Kolomensky districts of the Moscow region, as well as in Domodedovo city, home to one of the city’s biggest airports, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said.
“32 drones flying to Moscow have been destroyed,“ Sobyanin said. He reported no major damage, though Russia’s federal air transport agency said the airports of Domodedovo, Sheremetyevo and Zhukovo had diverted flights.
One person was injured.
The airports have since resumed their operations, Russia’s aviation watchdog Rosaviatsia said.
Moscow and its surrounding region, with a population of at least 21 million people, is one of the biggest metropolitan areas in Europe, alongside Istanbul.
The Ramenskoye district, some 45 km (30 miles) southeast of the Kremlin, was last targeted in September in what was then Ukraine’s biggest attack on the Russian capital, when Russian air defence units destroyed 20 drones.
Unverified video posted on Russian Telegram channels showed drones buzzing across the skyline. Russian officials reported multiple Ukrainian drone attacks in other regions, among them the Kaluga, Bryansk and Orlov regions.
The 2-1/2-year-old war in Ukraine is entering what some officials say could be its final act after Moscow’s forces advanced at the fastest pace since the early days of the war and Donald Trump was elected 47th president of the United States.
Trump, who takes office in January, said during campaigning that he could bring peace in Ukraine within 24 hours, but has given few details on how he would seek to do this.
When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy called Trump to congratulate him on his presidential election victory, Tesla CEO and Trump supporter Elon Musk joined the call, according to media reports. Musk owns SpaceX, which provides Starlink satellite communication services that are vital for Ukraine’s defense effort.
MOSCOW ‘UMBRELLAS’
Kyiv, itself the target of repeated mass drone strikes from Russian forces, has tried to strike back against its vastly larger eastern neighbour with repeated drone strikes against oil refineries, airfields and even the Russian strategic early-warning radar stations.
While the 1,000 km (620 mile) front has largely resembled grinding World War One trench and artillery warfare for much of the war, one of the biggest innovations of the conflict has been drone warfare.
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 using farmers’ shotguns to advanced electronic jamming systems.
Moscow has developed a series of electronic “umbrellas” over Moscow, with additional advanced internal layers over strategic buildings, and a complex web of air defences which shoot down the drones before they reach the Kremlin at the heart of the Russian capital.
Both sides have turned cheap commercial drones into deadly weapons while ramping up their own production. Soldiers on both sides have reported the visceral fear of drones – and both sides have used macabre video footage of fatal drone strikes in their propaganda.
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has sought to insulate Moscow from the grinding rigours of the war, has called Ukrainian drone attacks that target civilian infrastructure such as nuclear power plants “terrorism” and has vowed a response.
Moscow, by far Russia’s richest city, has boomed during the war, buoyed by the biggest defence spending splurge since the Cold War.
There was no sign of panic on Moscow’s boulevards. Muscovites walked their dogs while the bells of the onion-domed Russian Orthodox churches rang out across the capital.
