MOSCOW: Russia spoke of taking harsh retaliatory measures against Ukraine after two drones damaged buildings in Moscow early on Monday, including one close to the Defence Ministry’s headquarters, in what it called a brazen act of terror.
Nobody was hurt in the attack. One drone struck close to the Moscow building where the Russian military holds briefings on what it calls its “special military operation”, a symbolic blow which underscored the reach of such drones. Roads nearby were temporarily closed, windows on the top two floors of an office building struck by a second drone in another Moscow district were blown out, and debris was scattered on the ground.
A third “helicopter-type drone”, which was not carrying explosives, fell on a cemetery in a town outside Moscow, the Russian Foreign Ministry said in a statement in which it vowed that all those responsible would be found and punished. The Kremlin said it would press on with its campaign in Ukraine and meet all aims of an operation which Kyiv and much of the West say is a brutal war of conquest.
The Moscow drone attack, though not serious in terms of its human cost or damage, was the most high-profile of its kind since two drones reached the Kremlin in May. A swarm of 17 drones also launched attacks overnight on Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014, the Russian Defence Ministry said, adding it had used anti-drone equipment and air defences to bring them down.