The Moscow region was on Sunday morning the target of a drone attack on an unprecedented scale since the start of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, with around thirty aircraft shot down according to the Russian authorities who specified that a woman was injured.
The Russian Defense Ministry announced on Telegram that it had “foiled an attempted terrorist attack by the kyiv regime”, by destroying a total of 70 drones in the morning, including 34 in the Moscow region.
The others were shot in the Moscow-bordering regions of Kaluga (7) and Tula (2), and in three border regions of Ukraine: Bryansk (14), Oriol (7), Kursk (6).
Describing on Telegram a “massive attack”, the governor of the Moscow region, Andreï Vorobiov, affirmed that the interceptions had notably taken place above the towns of Ramenskoye and Domodedovo, around forty kilometers south-east of the center of Moscow and close to airports.
This operation in the suburbs of Moscow comes four days after a massive Russian drone attack on the Ukrainian capital, targeted almost daily for a month.
kyiv says it is carrying out its strikes on Russia, which usually mainly target energy sites, in response to the deadly Russian bombings which have destroyed its infrastructure and devastated its cities since Vladimir Putin launched the large-scale assault on Ukraine. in February 2022.
Russia reports shooting down Ukrainian drones over its territory almost daily, but they rarely target the Russian capital, located some 500 kilometers from the Ukrainian border.
On Sunday, a 52-year-old woman was injured by shrapnel, burned to the face, neck and hands, and two houses were set on fire, said Governor Andrei Vorobiov.
Russian aviation authorities suspended flights departing and arriving from three airports for almost two hours: Sheremetyevo, Domodedovo and Zhukovsky. Located southeast of the capital, the last two are near the places where drones were shot down.
On September 10, Russian authorities announced the death of a woman during a Ukrainian strike that hit a residential building in the town of Ramenskoye, southeast of Moscow.
In August, the Russian capital also suffered “one of the largest” attacks from Ukraine with around twenty drones intercepted, according to its mayor, Sergei Sobyanin.
In the summer of 2023, devices were destroyed above the Moscow business district, and, in May 2023, two devices were shot down within the Kremlin compound.
– The Ukrainian army is struggling –
On the front, Ukrainian troops are struggling, suffering from their inferiority in weapons and personnel, and retreating in multiple sectors in eastern Ukraine, where Russian troops have been advancing for months.
Furthermore, thousands of North Korean soldiers are, according to kyiv and the West, deployed in the Russian region of Kursk, where the Ukrainian army has controlled a few hundred square kilometers since its surprise operation launched on August 6. kyiv assures that they have already been engaged in combat.
The West, however, refuses to authorize kyiv to strike deep into Russian territory with the weapons it supplies and to shoot down Russian missiles targeting Ukrainian cities, for fear that this would lead to an escalation.
And with Donald Trump's American presidential victory, the question arises of the sustainability of American support, which has enabled Ukraine to resist Russian troops since February 2022.
“The situation in the theater of hostilities is not in favor of the kyiv regime, the West has a choice: to continue its financing (of Ukraine) and the destruction of the Ukrainian population or to admit the existing realities and begin to negotiate”, warned this week the head of the Russian Security Council and former Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu.
Sunday's attack also comes as Russia welcomes senior officials from around fifty African countries to Sochi (southwest), for a conference aimed at strengthening ties between Moscow and Africa.
