Ukraine delivered a blow to the heart of Moscow on a Russian federal holiday Sunday, with drone strikes damaging two office buildings just five miles from the Kremlin — leaving one person injured and briefly shuttering an airport.
The attacks on Russia’s Navy Day were not officially acknowledged by Ukraine, but President Volodymyr Zelensky appeared to justify the offensive in his nightly video address.
“Gradually, the war is returning to the territory of Russia — to its symbolic centers and military bases, and this is an inevitable, natural and absolutely fair process,” Zelensky said.
A Ukraine military official also referenced the offensive, saying that everyday Russians are now being affected by their country’s unprovoked invasion.
Photos from the site of the crash showed the facade of a skyscraper damaged on one floor. REUTERS
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said the attack “insignificantly damaged” the outsides of two buildings in the Moscow City district. REUTERS“All of the people who think the war ‘doesn’t concern them’ — it’s already touching them,” Ukrainian air force spokesman spokesperson Yurii Ihnat told reporters Sunday.
The Russian Defense Ministry said three drones targeted Moscow in an “attempted terrorist attack by the Kyiv regime.” Russia said one drone was shot down outside of the city while two others jammed and crashed into the business district.
A drone had ripped off part of the facade of the skyscraper, IQ-Quarter, according to footage that showed sparks, flames and smoke spewing from the highrise as debris fell to the sidewalk as its windows were blown out.
The building’s tenants included several government offices, and the attack injured a security guard, according to Russian state media.
A woman stands next to a broken glass pane outside one of the office buildings that were damaged from the drone strike on Sunday. REUTERSFlights were temporarily suspended at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport as the airspace around the capital was closed.
The strike was the fourth air attack on the Moscow region in July, and the third this week — highlighting Russia’s shortcomings in its war on Ukraine, which is now in its 18th month.
As Zelensky vowed to take back all of the land Russia had occupied with the help of newly-acquired Western weaponry, Russia blamed his forces for attacking the border region of Bryansk, where an attack damaged a pig breeding complex and injured three people.
There was no immediate comment from Ukrainian officials, who rarely if ever take responsibility for attacks on Russian soil. YURI KOCHETKOV/EPA-EFE/ShutterstockUkraine said Sunday it had shot down four Russian drones above the illegally annexed Kherson and Dnipropetrovsk regions, where Russian forces continued to face fierce Ukrainian resistance.
It also claimed to have foiled a Ukrainian attack on Russian-annexed Crimea, shooting down 16 drones and neutralizing eight more with an electronic jamming system.
Meanwhile, two people were killed and 20 more were injured in a drone strike on a university complex in the Ukraine city of Sumy.
Moscow announced Sunday that it had foiled a Ukrainian attack on Russian-annexed Crimea, shooting down 16 drones and neutralizing eight more with an electronic jamming system. AFP via Getty Images
A security guard was injured in the attack, Russia’s state news agency Tass reported, citing emergency officials. REUTERS





