![\"Moscow](\"https:\/\/c.ndtvimg.com\/2023-07\/j7d8hgmo_moscow-drone-attack-afp_625x300_30_July_23.jpg\"\/ "\\"Moscow")
<\/div>\nEarlier this month, Russia said it had downed five Ukrainian drones (File)<\/p>\n<\/div>\n
Moscow: <\/b><\/p>\n
Three Ukrainian drones were downed over Moscow early Sunday, Russia’s defence ministry said, in an attack that briefly shut an international airport.<\/p>\n
While one of the drones was shot down on the city’s outskirts, two others were “suppressed by electronic warfare” and smashed into an office complex. No one was injured.<\/p>\n
Moscow and its environs, lying about 500 km (310 miles) from the Ukrainian border, had been rarely targeted during the conflict in Ukraine until several drone attacks this year.<\/p>\n
The attack reported Sunday is the latest in a series of recent drone assaults — including on the Kremlin and Russian towns near the border with Ukraine — that Moscow has blamed on Kyiv.<\/p>\n
The defence ministry called it an “attempted terrorist attack”.<\/p>\n
“On the morning of July 30, the Kyiv regime’s attempted terrorist attack with unmanned aerial vehicles on objects in the city of Moscow was thwarted,” it said on Telegram.<\/p>\n
“One Ukrainian UAV was destroyed in the air by air defence systems over the territory of the Odintsovo district of Moscow region.<\/p>\n
“Two more drones were suppressed by electronic warfare and, having lost control, crashed on the territory of Moscow-City’s non-residential building complex.”<\/p>\n
Moscow-City is a commercial development to the city’s west.<\/p>\n
City Mayor Sergei Sobyanin posted on Telegram that the “facades of two city office towers were slightly damaged”.<\/p>\n
He added that there were “no victims or injured”.<\/p>\n
Airport briefly closed<\/strong><\/p>\n The TASS state news agency reported that the capital’s Vnukovo airport was “closed for departures and arrivals, flights are redirected to other airports”.<\/p>\n Within less than an hour, operations appeared to have returned to normal.<\/p>\n Earlier this month, a volley of drone attacks briefly disrupted air traffic at the same airport, to the city’s southwest.<\/p>\n The attacks on Moscow come several weeks into a Ukrainian counter-offensive to claw back territory captured by Russia since large-scale hostilities erupted in February 2022.<\/p>\n Russia’s foreign ministry has said such attacks “would not be possible without the help provided to the Kyiv regime by the US and its NATO allies”.<\/p>\n On Friday Russia said it had intercepted two missiles over its southern Rostov region bordering Ukraine, with at least 16 people wounded by debris falling on the city of Taganrog.<\/p>\n Shortly after, it said it downed a second S-200 missile near the city of Azov, with debris falling in an unpopulated area.<\/p>\n On the other side of the border, a Russian strike killed two people in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia on Saturday, authorities there said.<\/p>\n And at least one civilian was killed in a missile attack on the northeastern city of Sumy, according to Ukrainian national police, who added that there were five injured.<\/p>\n According to public broadcaster Suspilne, the building was destroyed in an explosion at about 8:00 pm (1700 GMT).<\/p>\n In early July, a Russian drone attack hit an apartment building in the same city, killing three and wounding 21.<\/p>\n (Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)<\/i><\/p>\n <\/span><\/p>\nFeatured Video Of The Day<\/h3>\n