Ukraine: Alleged Drone Assault on Moscow Russian Officials Report Intercepting Dozens”

According to Russian officials on Sunday, Ukraine attempted to assault Moscow with hundreds of drones throughout the course of the night. This happened the day after Russian drone strikes on Kyiv were the strongest since the start of the country’s full-scale conflict in 2022, according to Ukrainian officials.

Russian Defenses Intercept 24 Drones Across Provinces: No Casualties Reported

At least 24 drones were intercepted by Russian air defenses over four additional provinces to the south and west, as well as the Moscow area, which encompasses the city but does not contain it. Sergei Sobyanin, the mayor of Moscow, and the Russian Defense Ministry both shared this information in a series of Telegram updates. No talk of casualties was made.

About 113 miles south of Moscow, in the western Russian city of Tula, one drone crashed into a 12-story residential building. Local Governor Aleksei Dyumin said via Telegram on Sunday morning that one resident was slightly hurt and that there was little damage done.

In addition, Moscow region governor Andrei Vorobyev stated on Telegram that three unidentified buildings in the area had been destroyed by the drone attacks, although he made it clear that no one had been hurt.

The drone strike caused the Moscow airports of Vnukovo and Domodedovo to temporarily close, according to Russia’s official news agency Tass. However, information from foreign flight monitoring portals seemed to indicate that they appeared to have returned to regular operations by 6 a.m. local time.

Since May, Moscow has been subjected to frequent drone strikes, which Russian officials have blamed on Ukraine. According to military analysts, the drones used in these early strikes were domestically manufactured in Ukraine and were not as capable of carrying a large payload as Russia’s Shahed drones, which were manufactured in Iran.

Ukraine Silent on Moscow Drone Strikes Following Russia’s Assault on Kyiv

Ukrainian government have not recognized or responded to these strikes as of Sunday morning. These occurrences happened the day after Russia used more than sixty Shahed drones to strike the capital of Ukraine. Several buildings, including a kindergarten, were destroyed during the hours-long assault, which left at least five individuals injured. An 11-year-old child was among the injured, as stated by Mayor Vitali Klitschko of Kyiv.

On Sunday, the Ukrainian air force declared that they had shot down eight of the nine Shahed drones that Russia had fired throughout the course of the previous night.Two Soviet-made S-200 rockets fired by Kyiv were intercepted over the Sea of Azov, between Crimea and the southeast coast of Ukraine that is under Russian occupation, according to a report released by the Russian Defense Ministry on Sunday morning.

Ukrainian Strike on Power Plant Causes Outages in Russian-Occupied Eastern Ukraine

According to a Moscow-appointed local authority on Telegram on Sunday, a nocturnal Ukrainian strike on a thermal power plant in the Donetsk region caused power outages in other areas of Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine. Parts of occupied Donetsk and Mariupol, as well as surrounding territories, lost electricity due to the attack on the Starobesheve facility, according to Denis Pushilin, the head of the province that Russia annexed last year.

According to reports from the Ukrainian General Staff and research by the Washington-based Institute for the Study of War, there appears to be continuous combat near the town of Avdiivka, where Russian soldiers have been attempting to advance. Fighting has been centered on Avdiivka, a Ukrainian stronghold, since the beginning of the war.

Air raid sirens were heard earlier in Crimea, which Russia seized, following what Russian officials described as a major drone strike on Friday, according to local news outlets. In addition, the 12-mile bridge that links Crimea with the Russian mainland had a temporary halt to traffic on Sunday morning.

Russian Telegram channels noted parallels to Iranian-made weaponry Moscow often uses in strikes on Ukraine, raising the possibility that Ukrainian troops may have deployed a type of drone never seen before in this purported hit.

Ukrainian Forces Repel Russian Attacks on Avdiivka: General Staff Reports

On Sunday morning, the Ukrainian General Staff announced that in the last 24 hours, Russian attacks against Avdiivka had been repulsed by Kyiv’s soldiers from the northeast, west, and southwest. This happened when the forces of Moscow applied pressure in an effort to surround the city..

Unverified reports from a number of Russian bloggers stated that Ukrainian soldiers had started to evacuate the industrial area on the southern edge of Avdiivka. Different reports surfaced, though, with some claiming that Russian soldiers weren’t in total control of the region. It was not possible to independently verify these allegations.”