For the first time there are injuries in the Moscow region from attacks by Ukrainian drones. A man has been hospitalized and a woman was treated at the scene for fragments of a downed drone that fell on a house, according to the region’s governor.
Russia announced in the morning that it had thwarted two Ukrainian drone strikes near the capital. “An attempt by kyiv to carry out an attack with an unmanned aerial vehicle was thwarted” around 6:50 a.m. local time, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement. The drone was “neutralized by means of electronic warfare” and crashed in the village of Pokrovskoye, located southwest of Moscow, he said, adding that there were no casualties. Another “kyiv regime attack” at 8:16 a.m. was thwarted in Istra, northwest of the Russian capital, the Defense Ministry said.
After 18 months of Russian bombardments in Ukrainian cities, the head of the Russian government channel RT, Margarita Simonyan, denounced that rubble fell in her neighborhood. “The drone that was shot down in the Istra district fell on the street next to us. Thanks to our air defense, no casualties or damage.” She later congratulated herself that “our guys say we took Sinkovka in the Kupyansk area,” a Ukrainian territory razed by Russian troops in an invasion that her channel has backed.
Moscow region authorities confirmed that two people were injured in Istra after debris from the downed drone fell on a house. The windows of three houses were also broken. Emergency services are on the scene,” Moscow Region Governor Andrey Vorobyov said in a Telegram message.
Arrivals and departures from Moscow’s four main airports – Vnukovo, Domodedovo, Sheremetyevo and Zhukovsky – were restricted, affecting 45 passenger jet flights and two cargo planes, Russian aviation authority Rosaviatsia said.
Separately, the Russian Defense Ministry said it had shot down a drone in the Belgorod region bordering Ukraine, while the governor of the Kaluga region south of Moscow said a drone had also been repelled there. No damage was reported in either attack, Reuters reports.
Drone strikes in the Russian capital have become increasingly common in recent months. Four drone strikes on Moscow have been repelled this month, with two drones causing minor damage to high-rise buildings in the commercial development of Moscow City. Ukraine generally does not comment on who is behind the attacks on Russian soil, although officials have publicly welcomed them. To prevent air raids, the Russian authorities have tapped the GPS signal, causing the disorientation of many drivers in the capital and delays in the taxi service.
