At dawn, Muscovites were awakened by bombs. They are not used to it: the Russian capital was targeted on Tuesday morning by a rare drone attack. A few hours earlier, Russian drones attacked Kiev, the Ukrainian capital, overnight: at least one person died, and others were wounded, according to the mayor of the city, Vitaly Klitschko.
What happened?
Drones targeted Moscow, the Russian capital, at dawn on Tuesday morning. Several residential buildings and houses were hit, causing "minor" damage, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said. Images circulated on social media showed traces of smoke in the sky. On others, a window of a broken building can be seen.
⚡️More than ten drones attacked the suburbs of moscow, — russian media.
Moscow Mayor Sobyanin reported damage to several houses as a result of an attack by an unmanned aerial vehicle. The mass media reported on the casualties during the fall of the UAV on moscow's Leninsky... pic.twitter.com/SxRam2jWdJ
— FLASH (@Flash_news_ua) May 30, 2023
There were no casualties. "No one has been seriously injured so far," the mayor continued. According to him, the authorities have evacuated residents of two residential buildings in Moscow, damaged by drones. They "will be able to return to their apartments as soon as the special services have finished their work," said the mayor of the Russian capital.
For his part, the governor of the Moscow region, Andrei Vorobiov, claimed that several drones had been shot down as they approached the capital. "This morning, residents of some districts of the Moscow region could hear the sound of explosions, it was our air defense system," he wrote on Telegram. He called on residents to "keep their cool": "All the rescue services are doing their job."
Why is this attack surprising?
Moscow has so far been very rarely targeted by drone attacks since the beginning of the conflict. The geographical distance from the capital makes it difficult to attempt an attack: Moscow and its region are located more than 1,000 km from Ukraine.
Nevertheless, this type of attack has multiplied, in Moscow as elsewhere in Russia. In early May, the government shot down two drones, accusing Ukraine of targeting the Kremlin, and denouncing an assassination attempt on Putin. An attack denied by Volodymyr Zelensky, and deemed "highly unlikely" by an expert.
This Tuesday, this attack on Moscow looks like a Ukrainian replica: during the night, a Russian drone attack left at least one dead and several wounded in Kiev. Earlier in the day, on Monday, Russian strikes in broad daylight had caused panic in the Ukrainian capital, which has been attacked multiple times since the beginning of May.