To the Russian bombings, Ukraine responded with a drone attack on the night of July 29-30. But this offensive was hijacked by Moscow, all without causing casualties. The only impact: the airport of the Russian capital is briefly closed according to the declaration of the local authorities this Sunday, July 30.
“Ukrainian drones attacked last night. The facades of two office towers in the city were slightly damaged. There are no casualties or injuries,” Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Telegram. The attack, a total of three drones, was foiled, the Russian Defense Ministry said, adding that one was shot down and the other two, “neutralized by electronic warfare”, crashed into a complex of buildings.
“Gradually, war is returning to the territory of Russia, to its symbolic centers and military bases, and this is an inevitable, natural and absolutely just process,” Volodymyr Zelensky said in his daily address on the sidelines of a visit to Ivano-Frankivsk (West).
Vnukovo International Airport in southwest Moscow was briefly closed to traffic and flights were rerouted, Russian news agency TASS said, citing “aviation services”, before announcing their resumption a little after. Attacks on and around Moscow, located nearly 500 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, were fairly rare from the start of the conflict in February 2022, until several drone incursions occurred in 2023.
The one reported on Sunday is the latest in a series of drone attacks, including one against the Kremlin and Russian towns near the border with Ukraine, which Moscow attributes to Kiev.
Earlier in July, Russia claimed to have shot down five Ukrainian drones that had previously disrupted the operation of Vnukovo airport. These attacks come a few weeks after the launch of the Ukrainian counter-offensive, intended to retake the territories occupied by Russia.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov blamed the attacks, which “would not be possible without the assistance provided to the Kiev regime by the United States and its NATO allies”, according to him.
On Friday, the Kremlin said it intercepted two Ukrainian missiles over the southwest of its territory, the debris of the first having injured at least 16 as they fell on the city of Taganrog, near the border with Ukraine.
The border regions have often been the target of drones and shelling since the beginning of the conflict, but very rarely of missiles. The Russian Defense Ministry then said that the first missile, an S-200, was aimed at “residential infrastructure” in Taganrog, 250,000 people.
Shortly after, the second S-200 was shot down near Azov, the debris falling this time on an uninhabited area, according to the ministry.
On the Ukrainian side, near the border, the city of Sumy was hit on Saturday evening by a Russian missile. At least one civilian died and five were injured, according to police, who said the attack hit an educational facility.
According to state-owned media Suspilne, one of the buildings in the complex was destroyed by the explosion which occurred at 8 p.m. local time (5 p.m. GMT). Images released by Suspilne show the rubble of this building.
In early July, a Russian drone attack hit an apartment building in Sumy, killing 3 and injuring 21.
Earlier Saturday, a man and a woman were also killed in a Russian strike, this time in Zaporizhia, the major city in southern Ukraine, local authorities reported.
