Russia claimed on Friday that it had destroyed Ukrainian drones in Moscow and the Black Sea, two places where such attacks have increased in recent weeks in the context of the Ukrainian counter-offensive and the withdrawal from Moscow in mid-July. of the grain agreement.
“Last night, during an attempt to reach Moscow, the air defense forces destroyed a drone. The carcass of the drone fell back into the area of ??the Exhibition Center, and did not cause significant damage to the building “said Mayor Sergei Sobyanin.
The capital’s emergency services are on the scene and, according to initial information, no casualties have been identified, added the elected official.
According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the attack was carried out by kyiv at 4 a.m. local time (0100 GMT) and targeted “locations in Moscow and the region”.
The “Expocentre” exhibition center, located in the west of the Russian capital some 5 km from the Kremlin, hosts trade fairs, according to its website.
“A partial collapse of the outer wall was found on one of the pavilions” of the complex, Russian state news agency TASS reported, citing emergency services.
According to TASS, the airspace near Moscow’s Vnukovo International Airport was also briefly closed.
Drone attacks inside Russian territory have been increasing for several weeks, most often without causing damage or casualties, and targeting the capital in particular.
The Russian army announced on August 11 that it had destroyed a Ukrainian drone in a forest area west of Moscow.
In late July and early August, aircraft were destroyed over Moscow City, the capital’s business district adjacent to the Exhibition Center, causing slight damage to the facade of two towers. In May, two drones were shot down over the Kremlin.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky welcomed at the end of July that “war is coming to Russian territory”.
On the Black Sea side, Russia said it had thwarted a new Ukrainian attack a few hours earlier with a naval drone against its fleet present in the Black Sea.
In recent weeks, devices of this type have targeted Russian ships on several occasions, since Moscow refused in mid-July to renew a UN-brokered agreement which authorized Ukrainian grain exports.
The ships targeted Thursday evening, according to the Russian Defense Ministry, “were performing navigation control tasks in the southwestern part of the Black Sea, 237 km southwest of Sevastopol”, fleet headquarters local Russian.
“The unmanned enemy boat was destroyed by fire” from Russian military ships without reaching its target, the same source reported.
Despite this maritime blockade, the first cargo ship departing from Ukraine since the end of the grain agreement arrived Thursday evening as planned in Istanbul, according to maritime traffic sites.
The Hong Kong-flagged container ship ‘Joseph Schulte’ left the Ukrainian port of Odessa on Wednesday, a challenge to Russia, which has been threatening to attack such ships since withdrawing from the EU. agreement.
Russia had fired warning shots last weekend at a cargo ship belonging to a Turkish company heading for Izmail, a port on the Danube in southern Ukraine.
On Thursday evening, the Turkish presidency broke the silence, declaring that “interlocutors in Russia have been warned to avoid this kind of initiative which could raise tensions in the Black Sea”.
Moscow has also intensified its attacks on Ukrainian port infrastructure on the Black Sea and the Danube since its withdrawal from the grain agreement concluded under the aegis of the UN and Turkey and which entered into force in the summer of 2022.
Russian attempts to obtain unilateral control of navigation on the Black Sea come against the backdrop of a military counter-offensive launched in June by Ukrainian forces and which relies on new Western equipment but is progressing slowly.
08/18/2023 06:12:41 – Moscow (AFP) – © 2023 AFP
