Ukraine’s drones target Moscow, more than 30 airline flights suspended, Russia says
2024.09.10 00:12
(Reuters) -Russian officials said on Tuesday they shot down at least 15 drones around Moscow overnight in a wave of attacks that set residential buildings on fire, killed a nine-year-old child and forced more than 30 flights in the capital to be suspended.
More than 60 drones were also downed over Russia’s southwestern region of Bryansk, which borders Ukraine and the Lipetsk region in Russia’s south, regional governors said. There was no damage or casualties reported there.
Ukraine’s domestic drone industry has been growing rapidly and Kyiv has been stepping up drone attacks on Russian energy, military and transport infrastructure.
Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on the Telegram messaging app that at least 15 drones were downed around Moscow, with emergency crews dispatched to several sites across the region and near the Zhukovo airport and to the Domodedovo district – home to one of the Moscow’s largest airports.
Russia’s RIA agency reported that Zhukovo was closed for air traffic following the suspension of more than 30 domestic and international flights there and at other airports that serve the Russian capital.
The overnight drone attacks damaged at least two high-rise apartment buildings in the Ramenskoye district of the Moscow region, setting several flats on fire, Moscow’s governor Andrei Vorobyov said on Telegram.
“Unfortunately, a 9-year-old child died,” Vorobyov said.
The Ramenskoye district, some 50 kms (31 miles) southeast from the Kremlin, has a population of around quarter a million of people, according to official data.
Russia’s SHOT and Baza Telegram channels, which are close to Russia’s security services, posted videos with flames coming out from a multi-storey residential building, saying that five flats were destroyed in the drone attack in the Ramenskoye district.
Authorities of the Tula region, which neighbours the Moscow region to its north, told Russian state news agency that a drone wreckage fell onto a fuel and energy facility, but that “technological process” of the facility was not affected.
Tuesday’s attacks follow a deluge of drones Ukraine launched in early September targeting chiefly Russia’s energy and power facilities.
The attacks come at a critical juncture in war, with Russia pressing an offensive in eastern Ukraine while still struggling to expel Kyiv forces that broke through its western border in a surprise August incursion.
Russian officials often do not disclose the full extent of damage inflicted by Ukrainian attacks.
Reuters could not independently verify the reports. There was no immediate comment from Ukraine. Both sides deny targeting civilians in their attacks.
Ukraine has been pressing the United States for permission to use more powerful Western-supplied weapons to inflict greater damage inside Russia and impair Moscow’s abilities to continue its attacks on Ukraine, which it invaded in February 2022.
