The Russian Defense Ministry reported that three drones were shot down by air defense systems on Wednesday morning; one fell into a building in central Moscow due to electronic jamming, and the other two were shot down in the suburbs. One drone was shot down in a western part of Moscow, and Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin reported on the Telegram messaging app that it had hit a building under construction in the city’s central sector.
The latest attack on Russia’s capital city by combat drones, which authorities have blamed on Ukraine, resulted in the destruction of two UAVs and the electronic disablement of a third by Russian air defenses over central Moscow. Drone shot down by air defenses tonight in Moscow’s Mozhaisky neighborhood. Sobyanin stated on Telegram that the second UAV crashed into a city building that was still under construction.
The Khimki neighborhood of Moscow is the site where the third drone was shot down, according to the Russian defense ministry. Moscow’s Vnukovo, Sheremetyevo, and Domodedovo airports have been closed due to a drone strike for the second day in a row, according to the Russian state news agency TASS. Russia’s aviation regulator confirmed that airport operations resumed later Wednesday morning.
According to the state-run TASS news agency, emergency services reported “minor damage” to a building under construction in Moscow’s business sector. Sobyanin reported via Telegram that the business district was undergoing an emergency services check. He also mentioned that two nearby five-story buildings had had their windows broken into. Both Sobyanin and the defense ministry confirmed that no casualties had been reported.
On Wednesday, a video purporting to show the moment the drone crashed into an office building was uploaded on Russian-language social media, and it showed a bright light followed by a massive explosion and smoke. Krasnogorsk, a town in the Moscow region, and Chastsy, a nearby village, both saw drones shot down on Tuesday morning. Moscow’s defense ministry announced on Telegram that two further drones had been rejected over the Bryansk region, close to the Ukrainian border.
Authorities in Krasnogorsk report that falling debris from downed drones smashed windows in a multi-story apartment building and damaged vehicles on the ground. Recent weeks have seen a rise in drone strikes on Moscow, after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s warning in late July that Russia would soon be facing the same conflict that Moscow had unleashed in Ukraine.
The United States, which provides the bulk of Kyiv’s military support, has denied encouraging or enabling strikes by Ukrainian forces on Russian territory, a State Department spokeswoman said on Wednesday. A State Department spokeswoman told Reuters that Ukraine is free to defend itself however it sees fit in the face of Russia’s invasion.
