Moscow hit by second drone attack in two days
Helen Livingstone
Russian air defences have shot down “several” drones targeting the Moscow region, mayor Sergei Sobyanin has said, with one hitting a tower that had been struck on Sunday.
The Russian defence ministry said two drones were destroyed by air defence systems in the Odintsovo and Narofominsk districts near Moscow, while a third was jammed and crashed in the capital, the Russian state news agency Tass reported early on Tuesday. The ministry blamed the attacks on Kyiv.
Sobyanin said in a Telegram post that no injuries had been reported. “The facade of the 21st floor was damaged. The glazing of 150 square metres was broken,” he said.
Moscow’s Vnukovo airport was also temporarily shut and flights redirected.
Key events
Summary of the day so far …
-
Russian air defences have shot down “several” drones targeting the Moscow region, mayor Sergei Sobyanin said Tuesday, with one hitting a tower that had also been struck on Sunday. The Russian defence ministry said two drones were destroyed by air defence systems in the Odintsovo and Narofominsk districts near Moscow, while a third was jammed and crashed in the capital. The ministry blamed the attacks on Kyiv. Sobyanin said in a Telegram post that no injuries had been reported. Moscow’s Vnukovo airport was also temporarily shut and flights redirected.
-
The mayor of Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, said early on Tuesday that at least three drones hit populated areas of his city and one drone destroyed two floors of a dormitory. Ihor Terekhov wrote on Telegram: “A fire broke out and emergency services are attending. Details on casualties are being clarified.”
-
A doctor was killed and a nurse was wounded in Russian shelling of a hospital in Ukraine’s southern city of Kherson on Tuesday, regional officials said.
-
Ukraine’s interior minister has claimed an attempt to cross into the country on its northern border in the Chernihiv region by a Russian saboteur group has been foiled.
-
The Russian ministry of defence claims it successfully repelled a unmanned boat drone attack on two of its ships in the Black Sea fleet – the Sergey Kotov and the Vasily Bykov. In a statement the ministry said the unsuccessful attack was 340 km southwest of Sevastopol, and that three Ukrainian drone boats were destroyed.
-
Valery Gerasimov, the chief of the general staff of Russia’s armed forces, has visited Russian troops in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region, part of which is occupied by Russia and which the Russian Federation claims to have annexed. Gerasimov was one of the key Russian military figures repeatedy criticised by Yevgeny Prigozhin ahead of the Wagner group’s aborted uprising.
-
Denis Pushilin, the Russian-imposed acting governor of occupied Donetsk, has said the village of Staromaiorske remains hotly contested between Russian and Ukrainian forces.
-
A resident of Krasnodar in Russia has received a 12-year prison sentence after being found guilty of passing information to the security service of Ukraine.
-
At least six people, including a 10-year-old child, have been killed and more than 80 people are now known to have been injured after Russia struck a high-rise apartment in Kryvyi Rih on Monday.
A doctor was killed and a nurse was wounded in Russian shelling of a hospital in Ukraine’s southern city of Kherson on Tuesday, regional officials said.
“Today at 11.10am, the enemy launched another attack on the peaceful residents of our community,” Reuters reports military administration head Roman Mrochko wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
Photos posted by officials showed the bloodied floor of a balcony and a gaping hole in a roof with debris strewn over the floor.
Mrochko said the young doctor had only worked in his job for a few days and that doctors were fighting for the life of the nurse.
Suspilne reports that in Kherson region a 41-year-old man has been hospitalised after a mine exploded while he was driving a tractor.
Denis Pushilin, the Russian-imposed acting governor of occupied Donetsk, has said that the village of Staromaiorske remains hotly contested between Russian and Ukrainian forces.
Ukraine at one point claimed to have captured it, but Russian authorities have claimed that control of areas of the village continues to change hands.
Tass reports Pushilin told the Russian Solovyov Live channel that Ukraine is suffering heavy losses in the area and putting in a lot of service personnel. He is quoted as saying:
One of the hot spots is Staromaiorske. The settlement really withstands a lot. The enemy periodically enters there, our units are knocked out, for some period they even rolled back in order to carry out the operation more accurately. The enemy does not take into account the loss of manpower, but every person is important to us.
Staromaiorske is in the south-west of Donetsk region, close to the border with Zaporizhzhia region. The Russian Federation claimed to annex both regions last year.
There is currently an air alert in place across all of Ukraine.
Ukrainian political adviser Anton Gerashchenko has said that a second drone strike on the business district of Moscow within days shows that the Kremlin is unable to protect the city’s most privileged residents, and symbolises the failure of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
He wrote on social media:
The Moskva-City high-rises were a symbol of Russian economic flourishing and success, as well as Russia’s integration into global economy. After the second drone attack they will symbolise failure of the “special military operation” and lies of the Kremlin regime that promised and keeps promising Moscow residents complete protection.
Those who work in Moskva-City towers are the privileged class of government officials and business people. They saw with their own eyes that Russian authorities are incapable of and cannot protect even their social group. There is no air defence, air raid alerts, bomb shelters for them. Russia is unprotected. Everything that is going on in Russia and Moscow is a clear consequence of the full-scale war that Russia wages.
Interfax reports that a resident of Krasnodar in Russia has received a 12-year prison sentence after being found guilty of passing information to the security service of Ukraine.
Reuters report an adviser to Russia’s economy minister said on Tuesday the ministry’s employees were continuing to work remotely after drone strikes at the heart of Moscow’s financial district, with experts assessing the damage to infrastructure there.
Kharkiv’s mayor Ihor Terekhov has described last night in the city as “very difficult”.
Earlier he said that drones destroyed two floors of a dormitory, and Reuters reports he confirmed on Ukrainian television that the dormitory was not in use.
Regional governor Oleh Synehubov said a sports complex in the city’s Shevchenkivskyi district was hit, damaging a two-storey building. A 63-year-old security guard had been injured and was in hospital.
Alexander Bogomaz, the governor of Russia’s Bryansk region, has reported on Telegram that Ukrainian forces have shelled the village of Churovichi. He said there were no casualties, but that residential buildings and two cars were among the objects damaged.
Ukraine claims it repelled Russian saboteur group crossing northern border
Ukraine has thwarted an overnight attempt by a Russian saboteur group to cross its northern border, the interior minister, Ihor Klymenko, wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
“Last night, in the Chernihiv region, border guards stopped an attempt by an enemy saboteur-reconnaissance group to cross the state border of Ukraine within the Semenivka community,” Reuters reports he said.
Serhiy Naev, commander of the joint forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, said four armed people attempted to cross the border but were repelled by Ukrainian fire.
Klymenko said the four people were detected moving from Russian territory.
He added that reserves of the State Border Guard Service and Ukraine’s armed forces were deployed to strengthen the area.
Ukraine has strengthened its northern military sector following the reported arrival of Russian mercenary leader Yevgeny Prigozhin and some Wagner group troops in Belarus. The reported presence of the Wagner mercenaries has also led to Poland reinforcing its border.
Maria Zakharova has said of the drone attack on Moscow that Kyiv “continues to reveal itself to the world community as a terrorist cell.”
Tass quoted the Russian foreign ministry spokesperson, saying she was appearing on the Soloviev live TV channel.
Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, the UN has recorded over 20,000 civilian casualties in areas of Ukraine controlled by the Kyiv government and attacked by Russia, including over 7,000 civilian deaths.