According to Russia, the intensification of attacks on the capital region reflects the failures of the Ukrainian counter-offensive, while the President of Ukraine, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, indicated over the weekend that “the war is gradually returning to Russian territory” but he did not take responsibility for the incidents.
Repeated drone strikes underscore Moscow’s vulnerability as Russia’s war in Ukraine enters its 18th month.
Mykhailo Podolyak, Zelenskyy’s adviser, tweeted that Moscow “is quickly getting used to an all-out war which, in turn, will soon move into the territory of the ‘war authors’ to collect all their debts” but neither confirmed nor denied the claim. Kiev’s involvement in the incident.
Overnight, Russian forces attacked Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second-largest city, with Iranian-made Shahed drones, Shahed region governor Oleh Syniehubov said. One of them hit a three-story building of an educational institution in the Saltivka district, partially destroying the top two floors and the roof. No one was inside the building at the time of the incident.
Three other drones hit the premises of a sports complex in the city’s Shevchenkivskyi district, damaging the complex’s two-story building and injuring a 63-year-old security guard, Syniehubov said.
On Tuesday morning, Russian forces shelled the Kherson region and hit a health center, the province’s governor, Roman Mrochko, said. A doctor was killed and a nurse was injured, he added.
In Russia, the Defense Ministry said early Tuesday that it shot down two Ukrainian drones outside Moscow and seized control of another that crashed into a skyscraper in the Russian capital’s financial district, causing damage to the building facade.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said the crash occurred in the same building that was damaged in a similar attack early Sunday morning. In the IQ-Quarter, located about 7.2 kilometers (4.5 miles) from the Kremlin, are the offices of various government agencies, including the headquarters of the ministries of Economic Development; Digital Development and Communications and Industry and Commerce. Sobyanin noted that Tuesday’s incident caused no injuries.
In both incidents, the Russian military said the drones that hit the skyscraper were intercepted before impact.
It was not clear why the same building was hit twice in a row. In both incidents, Russian forces said they had seized control of the drones before they went down, prompting questions from even the Kremlin’s staunchest supporters.
Margarita Simonyan, editor of the state channel RT, said on social media that “the fact that a drone hit the same tower twice in a row, where three federal ministries are located, at least requires an explanation as to why electronic warfare shot down”.
Asking about the level of protection of the Russian capital given that allegedly interfered drones hit the same property, the Kremlin spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, referred the question to the Ministry of Defense and stated that “the threat exists and they are taking measures”.
Sobyanin said the drone that crashed into the building on Tuesday reached the 21st floor, one of those that houses the Ministry of Economic Development. Images of the incident showed several glass panels missing, revealing the charred interior, and around a dozen more were damaged. According to the alderman, 150 square meters of the glass façade was damaged.
Darya Levchenko, an adviser to the Ministry of Economic Development, said, according to the Russian news agency Interfax, that the department’s staff were working from home on Tuesday while damage was assessed at the office.
The Russian military also said that kyiv’s forces tried to attack two of its warships in the Black Sea overnight with maritime drones. The target of three of them were patrolmen Sergei Kotovy and Vasily Bykov, 340 km (211 miles) southwest of the Crimean city of Sevastopol, according to the Defense Ministry report. All three drones were destroyed, he added.
The attacks on Moscow and Crimea, which the Kremlin illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014, follow a deadly Russian missile attack on Krivoy Rog, Zelenskyy’s hometown in the center of the country. Monday’s attack destroyed part of a residential building, killing at least seven people and injuring dozens of others.
Separately, the Ukrainian presidential office reported on Tuesday that at least 12 civilians have been killed in the past 24 hours across the country and another 104 people have been injured.
According to the office, Monday’s attack in Krivoy Rog killed seven people, including a 10-year-old girl, making it one of the deadliest in recent weeks for the civilian population. Russian attacks hit a building and a university campus in that attack, which also left 81 injured, including seven minors.
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Hanna Arhirova in kyiv and Yuras Karmanau in Berlin contributed to this report.
FOUNTAIN: Associated Press
