10/09/24
Ukraine hits MOSCOW in huge drone attack, sparking apartment building blaze, wrecking dozens of homes and killing at least one woman in shock blow to Putin
Ukraine unleashed more than 140 drones on Russia overnight, officials said Tuesday, killing a woman near Moscow, grounding flights and setting off air defences in several parts of the country.
Russia's ministry of defence said in a statement it had shot down 144 Ukrainian drones overnight - '72 UAVs over Bryansk region, 20 over Moscow region, 14 over Kursk region, 13 over Tula region', and 25 more over five other parts of the country.
Moscow regional governor Andrey Vorobyov said in a Telegram post that a 46-year-old woman had been killed and several people wounded when a UAV damaged at least two high-rise apartment building in the Ramenskoye district of Moscow region, some 30 miles southeast of the Kremlin.
Videos of the brutal attack circulating on social media show flames bursting out of windows of a multi-storey residential building, saying that dozens of flats were left severely damaged following the blaze.
'I looked at the window and saw a ball of fire,' Alexander Li, a resident of the district told Reuters. 'The window got blown out by the shockwave.'
The attack marks one of the largest drone assaults against Russia since the beginning of the war.
As a result of the attack, four airports servicing Moscow - including major hubs Domodedovo and Sheremetyevo - had cancelled or delayed flights on Tuesday morning, according to state media.
Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin confirmed a fire had broken out on the runway at Zhukovsky airfield, caused by falling debris from a downed drone.
A major road leading to the capital was also partially closed.
A terrified resident told Shot media: 'I saw a fireball [and] managed to cover my wife.
'It was just a second, a bang and the window was blown out. We were all scared and ran in panic.'
In Bryansk, which borders Ukraine, 'the enemy carried out a massive terrorist attack', regional Governor Aleksandr Bogomaz said on Telegram, adding 'there were no casualties or damage, all attacks were repelled'.
More than 70 drones were downed over the Bryansk region and tens more over other regions, Russia's defence ministry said.
Russia says the attacks are akin to 'terrorism' as they target civilian infrastructure.
The latest wave of drones came as Moscow continued to claim incremental gains in Ukraine's east more than 30 months into its offensive, and as Kyiv's forces pressed their incursion into Russia's region of Kursk.
But Russia on Monday said its forces had captured another Ukrainian village, Memryk, seen as a stepping stone to the Kyiv-held logistics hub of Pokrovsk some 12 miles away.
Kyiv had launched its Kursk offensive on August 6 aiming to force Russia to redeploy troops pressing forward in the east, but Moscow has appeared to intensify its attacks there.
Moscow has also kept up its own aerial attacks on Ukraine in recent weeks, including on key energy infrastructure ahead of winter.
Three Russian drones were shot down above Ukraine's Sumy overnight, the regional military administration said early Tuesday, while air defences were also activated around Kyiv.
The military administration in the capital later said there were 'no consequences after the Russian UAV attack'.
Ukraine says it has a right to strike deep into Russia, which invaded Ukraine in 2022, though Kyiv's Western backers have repeatedly said they do not want the war to escalate into a direct confrontation between Russia and the US-led NATO military alliance.
There was no immediate comment from Ukraine about Tuesday's attacks. Both sides deny targeting civilians yet civilians have died in attacks from both sides.
Ukraine's domestic drone industry has been growing rapidly and Kyiv has been stepping up drone attacks on Russian energy, military and transport infrastructure. Russia is the world's second largest oil exporter.
Tuesday's attack follows a deluge of drones Ukraine launched in early September targeting chiefly Russia's energy and power facilities.
Authorities of the Tula region, which neighbours the Moscow region to its north, told Russian state news agency that a drone wreckage fell onto a fuel and energy facility, but that 'technological process' of the facility was not affected.
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