Ukraine attacked Moscow on Sunday with at least 34 drones, the biggest strike on the Russian capital since the war began in 2022, forcing flights to be diverted from the city’s three main airports and injuring at least one person.
The Russian Air Force destroyed another 36 drones in other regions of Western Russia in three hours on Sunday, the Ministry of Defense said.
“An attempt by the Kyiv regime to attack terrorists using a drone on the territory of the Russian Federation has failed,” the ministry said.
Russia’s air transport agency said three airports – Domodedovo, Sheremetyevo and Zhukovsky – had diverted at least 36 flights, but had resumed operations. One person was reported injured in the Moscow region.
A woman in her 50s suffered burns to her face, neck and hands after drones caught fire in her neighborhood southeast of Moscow, reported Gov. Andrei Vorobyov.
No one was injured in Moscow itself, according to Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, although Russian channels on the Telegram messaging service had eyewitness reports of plane debris on fire in suburbs.
Moscow and the surrounding region, with at least 21 million people, is one of the largest metropolitan areas in Europe.
On the other hand, Russia launched a record 145 drones in one night, Ukraine said. Kyiv said its air defense was down to 62 of those.
Ukraine also said it attacked an arsenal in the Bryansk region of Russia, which reported that 14 drones were shot down in the region.
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An unconfirmed video posted on Russian Telegram channels showed drones buzzing in the sky.
The war in Ukraine is entering what some officials say could be its last action after Moscow’s military has advanced at its fastest pace since the start of the war and Donald Trump was re-elected president of the United States.
Trump, who takes office in January, said during his campaign that he could bring peace to Ukraine within 24 hours, but gave few details on how he would want to do this.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Wednesday that he spoke with US President-elect Donald Trump following his victory. In addition, multiple outlets reported that billionaire Elon Musk joined the call. Nicholas Drummond, a former British military officer, says Musk could be a ‘positive’ influence on Trump.
When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called Trump to congratulate him on his presidential election victory, Tesla CEO and Trump supporter Elon Musk joined the call, according to media reports. Musk owns SpaceX, which provides Starlink satellite communications services vital to Ukraine’s defense effort.
Kyiv, itself the target of repeated drone strikes from the Russian military, has tried to retaliate against its larger eastern neighbor with drone strikes against oil refineries, airfields and early warning radar stations.
Moscow’s “umbrellas” against drone attacks
While the 1,000-kilometer front is very similar to the grind of the First World War and the artillery battle of the great war, one of the major new forms of conflict has been drone warfare.
Moscow and Kyiv both sought to buy and develop new drones, use them in new ways, and seek new ways to destroy them – from shooting farmers to advanced electronic jamming systems.
Moscow has established a series of electronic “umbrellas” over Moscow, with additional advanced internal layers over strategic buildings, and a complex web of air defenses that shoot down drones before they reach the Kremlin in the heart of the Russian capital.
Both sides have turned cheap commercial drones into deadly weapons while ramping up their production. Militants on both sides have reported a visible fear of drones — and both sides have used macabre footage of deadly drone strikes in their propaganda.
Putin promises an answer
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has sought to keep Moscow out of the thick of the war, has called Ukrainian airstrikes targeting civilian infrastructure such as nuclear power plants “terrorism” and vowed to respond.
Moscow, Russia’s richest city, has boomed during the war, fueled by the biggest defense spending since the Cold War.
There were no signs of panic on the streets of Moscow on Sunday. Muscovites walk their dogs while the bells of onion-shaped Russian Orthodox churches in the capital ring.
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