Moscow hit in fresh Ukrainian drone strike
Moscow/Kyiv, Aug 1 (EFE).- A skyscraper in central Moscow was struck in a Ukrainian drone strike on Tuesday, officials said, in the second such attack in as many days.
“Several drones while trying to fly to Moscow were shot down by air defense systems. One flew to the same tower in the City as last time,” Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said in a statement on Telegram.
The façade of the building’s 21st floor was damaged, Sobyanin added.
Moscow City, a complex in the financial heart of the Russian capital, was struck in a similar attack on Saturday.
“Moscow is rapidly getting used to a full-fledged war, which, in turn, will soon finally move to the territory of the ‘authors of the war’ to collect all their debts,” Ukrainian presidential advisor Mikhailo Podolyak said on Twitter.
Russian anti-aircraft defenses also shot down two drones in the Moscow region, one of them in the town of Naro-Fominsk, where the Second Motorized Infantry Division, an elite unit of the Russian Army, is stationed.
“Everything that will happen in Russia is an objective historical process. More unidentified drones, more collapse, more civil conflicts, more war,” Podolyak warned.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov tried to play down the incident, simply stating that “the threat really exists, it is evident and measures are being taken”.
It was not only the Russian capital that was targeted in drone attacks: Russian defense sources reported that two Navy ships repelled an attack by three Ukrainian maritime drones, while several Russian merchant ships in the southwestern Black Sea that were heading to the Bosphorus strait also came under attack.
According to military spokesman Igor Konashenkov, the Russian Navy escorting the ship destroyed the drones.
Russia, for its part, attacked the eastern city of Kharkiv using Iranian drones and shelled the southern city of Kherson with artillery.
“The enemy attacked Kharkov with five Shahed. All (emergency) services are working,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said, while the head of the Kherson military administration, Roman Mrochko, said that the Russian shelling had claimed the life of “a young doctor, who had started working a few days ago” and seriously wounded a nurse.
On the front lines, meanwhile the battle continues with neither side making any significant territorial gains. EFE
mos-int/ks
