Russia defence ministry states three Ukrainian drones shot down over Moscow

Three Ukrainian drones were shot down above Moscow early Sunday, according to Russia’s defence ministry, in an attack that temporarily shut down an international airport.

One of the drones was shot down on the outskirts of the city, while the other two were “suppressed by electronic warfare” and crashed into an office complex. Nobody was hurt.

Until multiple drone assaults this year, Moscow and its surrounds, which are around 500 kilometres (310 miles) from the Ukrainian border, had been seldom targeted during the crisis in Ukraine.

The incident claimed on Sunday is the latest in a string of recent drone attacks blamed on Kiev, including against the Kremlin and Russian cities near the Ukrainian border.

It was described as an “attempted terrorist attack” by the defence ministry.

“On the morning of 30 July, the Kyiv regime’s attempted terrorist attack with unmanned aerial vehicles on objects in the city of Moscow was thwarted,” it said on Telegram.

“One Ukrainian UAV was destroyed in the air by air defence systems over the territory of the Odintsovo district of Moscow region.

“Two more drones were suppressed by electronic warfare and, having lost control crashed on the territory of Moscow City’s non-residential building complex.”

Moscow City is a commercial development to the city’s west.

City Mayor Sergei Sobyanin posted on Telegram that the “facades of two city office towers were slightly damaged”.

He added that there were “no victims or injured”.

Airport briefly closed

The TASS state news agency reported that the capital’s Vnukovo airport was “closed for departures and arrivals, flights are redirected to other airports”.

Within less than an hour, operations appeared to have returned to normal.

Earlier this month, a volley of drone attacks briefly disrupted air traffic at the same airport, to the city’s southwest.

The attacks on Moscow come several weeks into a Ukrainian counter-offensive to claw back territory captured by Russia since large-scale hostilities erupted in February 2022.

Russia’s foreign ministry has said such attacks “would not be possible without the help provided to the Kyiv regime by the US and its NATO allies”.

On Friday Russia said it had intercepted two missiles over its southern Rostov region bordering Ukraine, with at least 16 people wounded by debris falling on the city of Taganrog.

Shortly after, it said it downed a second S-200 missile near the city of Azov, with debris falling in an unpopulated area.

On the other side of the border, a Russian strike killed two people in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia on Saturday, authorities there said.

At least one civilian was killed in a missile attack on the northeastern city of Sumy, according to Ukrainian national police, who added that there were five injured.

According to public broadcaster Suspilne, the building was destroyed in an explosion at about 8:00 p.m. (1700 GMT).

In early July, a Russian drone attack hit an apartment building in the same city, killing three and wounding 21.