Ukraine attacked Moscow on Sunday with at least 34 drones, the biggest drone strike on the Russian capital since the start of the war in 2022, forcing flights to be diverted from three of the city’s major airports and injuring at least one person.
Russian air defences destroyed another 36 drones over other regions of Western Russia in three hours on Sunday, the defence ministry said.
“An attempt by the Kyiv regime to carry out a terrorist attack using an airplane-type drones on the territory of the Russian Federation was thwarted,” the ministry said.
Russia’s federal air transport agency said three airports — Domodedovo, Sheremetyevo and Zhukovsky — diverted at least 36 flights, but then resumed operations. One person was reported injured in Moscow region.
A woman in her 50s suffered burns to her face, neck and hands after drones sparked a blaze in her village southeast of Moscow, local Gov. Andrei Vorobyov reported.
No one was hurt in Moscow itself, according to Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, although Russian channels on the messaging app Telegram carried eyewitness reports of drone debris setting fire to suburban homes.
Moscow and its surrounding region, with a population of at least 21 million people, is one of the biggest metropolitan areas in Europe.
For its part, Russia launched a record 145 drones overnight, Ukraine said. Kyiv said its air defences downed 62 of those.
Ukraine also said it attacked an arsenal in the Bryansk region of Russia, which reported 14 drones had been downed in the region.
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Unverified video posted on Russian Telegram channels showed drones buzzing across the skyline.
The war in Ukraine is entering what some officials say could be its final act after Moscow’s forces advanced at the fastest pace since the early days of the war and Donald Trump was re-elected as president of the United States.
Trump, who takes office in January, said during campaigning that he could bring peace in Ukraine within 24 hours, but has given few details on how he would seek to do this.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Wednesday that he spoke with U.S. president-elect Donald Trump following his victory. Additionally, multiple outlets have reported that billionaire Elon Musk joined the call as well. Nicholas Drummond, a former British Army officer, says Musk could be a ‘good’ influence on Trump.
When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called Trump to congratulate him on his presidential election victory, Tesla CEO and Trump supporter Elon Musk joined the call, according to media reports. Musk owns SpaceX, which provides Starlink satellite communication services that are vital for Ukraine’s defence effort.
Kyiv, itself the target of repeated mass drone strikes from Russian forces, has tried to strike back against its vastly larger eastern neighbour with drone strikes against oil refineries, airfields and strategic early-warning radar stations.
Moscow ‘umbrellas’ to counter drone attacks
While the 1,000-kilometre front has largely resembled grinding First World War trench and artillery warfare for much of the war, one of the biggest innovations of the conflict has been drone warfare.
Moscow and Kyiv have both sought to buy and develop new drones, deploy them in innovative ways, and seek new ways to destroy them — from farmers’ shotguns to advanced electronic jamming systems.
Moscow has developed a series of electronic “umbrellas” over Moscow, with additional advanced internal layers over strategic buildings, and a complex web of air defences which shoot down the drones before they reach the Kremlin at the heart of the Russian capital.
Both sides have turned cheap commercial drones into deadly weapons while ramping up their own production. Soldiers on both sides have reported a visceral fear of drones — and both sides have used macabre video footage of fatal drone strikes in their propaganda.
Putin vows a response
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has sought to insulate Moscow from the grinding rigour of the war, has called Ukrainian drone attacks that target civilian infrastructure such as nuclear power plants “terrorism” and has vowed a response.
Moscow, by far Russia’s richest city, has boomed during the war, buoyed by the biggest defence spending splurge since the Cold War.
There was no sign of panic on Moscow’s boulevards Sunday. Muscovites walked their dogs while the bells of the onion-domed Russian Orthodox churches rang out across the capital.