Russia downs 32 drones in biggest attack on Moscow

MOSCOW: Russia downed 32 Ukrainian drones targeting Moscow overnight, the city’s mayor said today, in the largest attack on the capital since Russia began its offensive in Ukraine in 2022.

The attack, which forced the temporary closure of three Moscow airports, injured a 52-year-old woman and set two homes on fire in the village of Stanovoye in the Moscow region, officials said.

While the Ukrainian capital Kyiv is regularly targeted by massive Russian drone and missile strikes, attacks on Moscow are much less frequent.

“Thirty-two drones headed for Moscow have been destroyed,” mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Telegram.

The drones were shot down over the Moscow region in the Ramenskoye, Kolomna and Domodedovo districts.

A video published online by Russian media showed a house on fire, apparently in the Ramenskoye district.

In the previous largest drone attack on or near Moscow in September, a woman was killed in Ramenskoye – the first time someone has been killed in a Ukrainian attack near the capital since the start of the conflict.

In May 2023, two drones were destroyed near the Kremlin and in the same year there were several drone attacks on the Moscow City business district.

Moscow region governor Andrei Vorobyov today said the drone attack had been “massive”.

He said the injured woman had been hospitalised with “burns to her face, neck and hands”.

Russia’s defence ministry said earlier it had downed a total of 23 Ukrainian drones over the Bryansk, Rostov, Belgorod and Kursk regions, which all border Ukraine and were drone strikes are more frequent.

Andrei Klychkov, the governor of Orlov region, which is closer to Moscow, said air defence had shot down a total of 10 drones over his region today.

Klychkov said there had been no casualties.

Ukraine has said the attacks, which often target energy production sites, are a response to Russian bombings on its territory since fighting began in February 2022.

Russian bombardment of Ukrainian cities in the night between Thursday and Friday last week killed at least one person and wounded more than three dozen more.

The air force said Moscow had launched five missiles, 92 drones as well as glide bombs across Ukraine overnight.

Its units downed four missiles and 62 drones, the air force said in a statement.