Three Ukrainian drones were downed over Moscow early on Sunday, Russia’s defence ministry said, in an attack that briefly shut an international airport.
While one of the drones was shot down on the city’s outskirts, two others were “suppressed by electronic warfare” and smashed into an office complex. A security guard was injured, Russia’s state news agency Tass reported, citing emergency officials.
“Ukrainian drones attacked tonight. Facades of two city office towers were slightly damaged,” Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin posted on Telegram.
Moscow and its surrounding area are more than 500km from the Ukrainian border and the ongoing conflict there, but have been targeted in several drone attacks this year.
The attack reported Sunday is the latest in a series of recent drone assaults – including on the Kremlin and Russian towns near the border with Ukraine that Moscow has blamed on Kyiv.
Kyiv is yet to comment, but Ukraine typically declines to claim responsibility for attacks on Russia.
The defence ministry called it an “attempted terrorist attack”.
“One Ukrainian UAV was destroyed in the air by air defence systems over the territory of the Odintsovo district of Moscow region,” it said on Telegram.
“Two more drones were suppressed by electronic warfare and, having lost control, crashed on the territory of Moscow-City’s non-residential building complex.”
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 south-west.
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.
On Friday, Russia said it had intercepted two Ukrainian missiles over its southern Rostov region bordering Ukraine, with at least 16 people wounded by debris falling on the city of Taganrog.
Regions bordering Ukraine have seen regular drone strikes and shelling since Moscow launched its military campaign in February last year, but have rarely been targeted by missiles.
The ministry said the first S-200 missile was aimed at the “residential infrastructure” of Taganrog, a city of about 250,000 people.
On the other side of the border, at least one civilian was killed in a Russian missile attack on the north-east Ukrainian city of Sumy on Saturday evening, according to national police, who added that there were five injured.