By Yuliya Talmazan - NBC News
Moscow on Tuesday morning received the attack of a wave of drones for the first time in a residential area since the beginning of Russia's invasion of Ukraine. The attack damaged some buildings in Moscow and forced residents to evacuate their homes, local authorities said.
The attack comes weeks after a suspected drone attack on the Kremlin and days of deadly Russian bombing of civilians in Kiev, as events far from the front lines grab attention ahead of Ukraine's planned counteroffensive.
The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement Tuesday that eight "aircraft-type" drones were involved in the alleged attack on Moscow. All the drones were destroyed, he added.
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Three got stuck and lost control, the ministry said, and the other five were shot down by the Pantsir-S anti-aircraft missile system in the Moscow region.
The ministry blamed Ukraine for what it called a "terrorist attack."
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said his country has "nothing to do directly" with drone strikes on Moscow. However, Ukraine is "delighted to observe and predict an increase in the number of attacks," he said in an interview on YouTube on Tuesday.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said the drone strikes had "caused minor damage to several buildings." In a series of messages on the Telegram messaging app, Sobyanin said two people "sought medical attention" and there were no serious injuries.
He added that "for safety reasons" some residents were evacuated from parts of the two affected buildings while emergency services worked at the scene.
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Andrei Vorobyov, governor of the Moscow region, confirmed in a message on Telegram that "several drones" were shot down as they approached Moscow.
Photos and videos shared on Russian social media appeared to show a drone flying over the town of Il'inskoe in Moscow's western region and smoke and the sound of an explosion in the village of Romashkovo in the same area.
Vorobyov said residents of the region could hear sounds of explosions Tuesday morning that he said were functioning air defense systems. "I ask people to remain calm," he added.
Russian authorities said an investigation had been opened into the drone strikes.
The state-run Tass news agency reported that all airports in Moscow and the region were operating normally. The agency also reported that a woman received a "slight shrapnel wound" after her residential building in southwest Moscow was hit by a drone.
Damage to a building in Moscow, allegedly caused by one of the drones that attacked the Russian capital on May 30, 2023. Maxim Shemetov / Reuters
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian capital suffered a new Russian attack, the seventeenth since early May.
The Kiev military administration reported attacks on several districts of the city and debris falling on residential structures and cars, causing some to catch fire. One person was killed and at least seven were injured.
Russia launched "several waves" of strikes with a combination of drones and missiles, the administration said, after a rare daytime attack on Monday that marked an intensification of the assault on the city.
But while the Ukrainian capital has faced relentless bombardment, Tuesday's drone strikes were unprecedented for Moscow.
It comes four weeks after Russia said two drones had attacked the Kremlin, in what it called an assassination attempt on President Vladimir Putin. Moscow also blamed Kiev for that alleged incident, an accusation that Ukrainian authorities denied.
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The war in Ukraine has spread to Russia in recent months, with drone strikes on military installations and oil refineries inside the country. Last week's raid on the Belgorod region near the border, claimed by a pair of anti-Putin militias, prompted authorities to rush to respond.
On Monday, the region's governor reported "a great deal of damage" after claiming that several settlements had been shelled by Ukrainian forces. One person was killed and several wounded, according to Vyacheslav Gladkov.
The border region has suffered repeated attacks since the beginning of the war, although Ukraine has frequently denied responsibility for the rising tide of attacks inside Russia.
The head of Russian mercenaries, Yevgeny Prigozhin, blamed his country's own military leaders for allowing drone strikes.
In an expletive-filled audio statement on his social channels, Prigozhin disparaged Moscow's Defense Ministry — the latest public rebuke to a ruling elite he recently warned could not only lose the war, but lead Russia toward a revolution similar to the events of 1917.
"The fact that they fly Rublyovka to your house, to hell! Let your houses burn," he said, referring to an upscale area of Moscow popular with Russian oligarchs. "And what do ordinary people do when drones with explosives crash into their windows?"
