Hours after Moscow accused Kyiv of using drones to target Moscow, the Kremlin said that war is “gradually returning” to Russia. This accusation was the latest in a string of attacks, according to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky.
A corporate and shopping complex in the west of the capital was targeted, according to the Russian Defence Ministry, despite the fact that three drones were intercepted on Sunday. No injuries were recorded, but a 50-story building’s fifth and sixth floors were damaged, according to state news agency TASS.
Videos of the incident showed both emergency services and debris.
Zelensky stated in his daily presentation that “Ukraine is strengthening and the war is gradually returning to Russia’s territory, to its symbolic centres and military bases.” “This is a natural, inevitable, and completely just.”
According to a spokeswoman for the Ukrainian Air Force, the recent drone assaults on Moscow were intended to shock Russians who had become complacent following the Kremlin’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
In Russia and Moscow, something is always in the air. According to the spokeswoman, Yurii Ihnat, who appeared on Ukrainian television, “now the war is affecting those who were not concerned.”
“Something does hit, no matter how much the Russian authorities would like to pretend they have intercepted everything.”
Unmanned aerial vehicles are being used more frequently by the Ukrainian military for purposes other than surveillance.
There will be more drone strikes in the future, according to Ukrainian Minister Mykhailo Fedorov, whose Digital Transformation Ministry is in charge of the nation’s “Army of Drones” acquisition strategy. Kyiv is stepping up a summer counteroffensive to drive Russian forces off Ukrainian land.
This week’s first objective was Moscow. An attack on two non-residential structures, including one close to the Ministry of Defence headquarters, was blamed on Ukraine on Monday. Russia referred to that occurrence as a “terrorist attack,” despite the fact that its military interventions in Ukraine frequently result in civilian casualties.
At least two civilians were murdered and 20 others were hurt in a Russian missile attack on the Ukrainian city of Sumy late on Saturday. Two more were killed in a rocket attack on Zaporizhzhia.
Over the weekend, heavy bombardments had been used in both regions. While a military official in Zaporizhzhia claimed Russian forces had launched 77 attacks on 20 communities around the region, damaging 31 homes and other infrastructure, Ukrainian officials in Sumy reported 25 incidences of shelling in a single day.
Residents of the Russian capital are uneasy despite the fact that there were allegedly no injuries or fatalities as a result of the strikes in Moscow.
One person who saw the attack on Sunday described how it disrupted some downtime that was scheduled.
“My friends and I had rented an apartment to relax here, and at some point, there was an explosion; it was like a wave, and everyone jumped,” she told Reuters. You couldn’t see anything because of the thick smoke. Fire was visible from above.
On Sunday, Ukrainian drones also attacked the Crimean Peninsula that Russia has annexed.
The land that Moscow illegitimately acquired from Ukraine in 2014 was intercepted by 25 unmanned aerial vehicles, according to the Russian Defence Ministry, 16 of which were shot down.
According to the ministry, the other nine aircraft crashed into the Black Sea as a result of electronic warfare equipment jamming their signals. Although there don’t seem to have been any casualties.
On Friday, Russia claimed to have shot down a Ukrainian missile over Taganrog, a city in southern Russia. Regarding the incident, which appears to be a rare instance of Ukraine firing missiles inside Russian territory, Ukraine made no comments.