Ukraine attacks Russia with more than 140 drones

MEXICO CITY (apro).-More than 140 Ukrainian drones attacked several regions in Russia overnight, including the capital, Moscow, and its surroundings, causing at least one death and eight injuries, authorities said Tuesday, in one of the largest attacks on Russian soil in the two-and-a-half years of war.

One woman was killed in the town of Ramenskoye outside Moscow, where drones struck two multi-storey residential buildings and started fires, Moscow region governor Andrei Vorobyov said. Five apartment buildings near one of the damaged buildings were evacuated because of falling drone debris, Vorobyov said.

The Ukrainian offensive prompted authorities to temporarily close three airports outside Moscow: Vnukovo, Domodedovo and Zhukovsky. A total of 48 flights were diverted to other airports, according to Russia’s civil aviation authority, Rosaviatsia. Vnukovo and Domodedovo airfields resumed operations in the morning, but the third remained closed in the afternoon while drone debris was cleared away, a spokesman told state news agency Interfax.

It was kyiv’s second major drone attack on Russia this month. On Sept. 1, the Russian military said it intercepted 158 Ukrainian drones over a dozen provinces, in what local media called the largest such Ukrainian offensive since the start of the war. Russia’s Investigative Committee announced the opening of a criminal investigation into what it described as a terrorist attack.

Russia, for its part, has bombarded Ukraine with missiles, glider bombs and its own drones in offensives that have claimed the lives of more than 10,000 civilians, according to the United Nations.

Ukraine has invested heavily in developing domestic production of drones, expanding their range, payload and uses. Increasingly, it is turning to drone attacks to slow down the Russian war machine, unsettle the Russian population and provoke the Kremlin.

Ukrainian officials have complained that weapons promised by their Western allies do not meet the needs of their military and often arrive much later than promised. The country’s president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has called on defence companies to increase their production.

On the 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front, Ukrainian troops are facing a better-equipped and larger Russian army. The two sides are fighting over areas of eastern Donetsk province, where they are fighting over towns and villages that are already bombed-out ruins. kyiv, meanwhile, launched a risky incursion into Russia’s Kursk border region last month.

In Moscow, the wreckage of a drone fell on a private house on the outskirts of the city on Monday evening, causing no injuries, said Mayor Sergei Sobyanin. According to the mayor, more than a dozen drones heading towards the city were shot down by anti-aircraft defences.

In total, Russia’s Defense Ministry said it “intercepted and destroyed” 144 Ukrainian drones over nine regions, both on the border and further inland.

Ukrainian officials declined to comment on the attack.

Moscow and its surrounding areas have been subject to frequent attacks throughout the war. In May 2023, Russian officials claimed that kyiv attempted to attack the Kremlin with drones, which caused minor damage to the roof of the palace that includes one of the official residences of the country’s president, Vladimir Putin.

In August last year, a drone attack on the capital’s business district blew out part of a skyscraper window and sent glass crashing into the street, unsettling Muscovites. The attacks exposed the weaknesses of the city’s and the region’s air defenses.

The Ukrainian air force said Russia launched 46 Shahed drones and two missiles over the country overnight, and 36 of them were shot down.