Vladimir Putin, the Russian President, has accused Ukraine of making an attempt to intimidate Russian residents following Tuesday’s drone assaults on Moscow, the capital metropolis. He claimed that civilians have been targeted, but the air defences managed to handle the risk successfully. The defence ministry reported that at least eight drones brought on minor damage, but Kyiv denies any involvement. This marks the primary time a number of drones have targeted the city since Russia invaded Ukraine.
Moscow’s Mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, stated that nobody was critically injured. Several drones landed in a western suburb where high-ranking officials reside. Putin, speaking on Russian tv, said the assault was a response to what he referred to as a Russian assault on Ukraine’s military intelligence headquarters in latest days. However, the BBC cannot independently verify if such an attack occurred.
“In response to this, the Kyiv regime chose a different path – the trail of attempts to intimidate Russia, to intimidate Russia’s residents, and of air strikes in opposition to residential buildings,” Putin said. “This is obviously an indication of terrorist activity.”
“They are frightening us into responding in type,” he added.
Russia’s foreign ministry claimed that Western support for Kyiv was “pushing the Ukrainian leadership in the direction of ever extra reckless legal deeds together with acts of terrorism”. However, the US state division reiterated Washington’s stance that it doesn’t help assaults within Russia, including that it was still gathering info on the drone strikes.
The Moscow strikes adopted an overnight drone attack on the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, during which no much less than one person was reported killed. Confidential stated that falling debris set buildings ablaze as Ukraine’s air defences intercepted over 20 drones.
Meanwhile, Russia’s defence ministry reported that every one eight drones focusing on Moscow have been intercepted. “Three of them were suppressed by electronic warfare, misplaced management and deviated from their supposed targets. Another five drones have been shot down by the Pantsir-S surface-to-air missile system within the Moscow region,” the ministry stated.
The aerial assaults struck a few of Moscow’s most prominent neighbourhoods, together with Leninsky Prospekt, a grand boulevard created beneath Josef Stalin. A western Moscow suburb, the place Putin and different members of the Russian elite have residences, was additionally hit.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak denied Kyiv’s direct involvement but acknowledged that Ukraine loved watching the events unfold and predicted a rise in such incidents. Putin acknowledged that whereas Moscow’s air defences had responded successfully, they nonetheless required “a little bit of work” and needed to be “more dense”.
Viktor Sobolev, a former military officer, mentioned the attacks came as a whole surprise to Muscovites. He explained that Russia’s radar couldn’t detect the drones and set off the air raid alarm as a outcome of they had been flying very low. He added that Russia should develop methods capable of detecting drones at low altitudes.
Three of the drones had been shot down over Moscow’s unique Rublyovka suburb, in accordance with a member of Russia’s parliament. The area, house to lots of Russia’s enterprise, political, and cultural luminaries, is a collection of unique gated communities located in the forests west of the capital. One zone is a 10-minute drive from Novo-Ogaryovo, the suburban residence of the Russian president, believed to be Putin’s main abode. Other alleged residents embody former president Dmitry Medvedev and Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, head of the Wagner Group, frequently criticised the neighbourhood’s inhabitants as an out-of-touch elite lacking commitment to Russia’s involvement in Ukraine. The mercenary chief blamed Tuesday’s drone assaults on army officials dwelling in the suburb. In a defiant message on the Telegram app, he requested why Russia was allowing drones to fly to Moscow and concluded, “Let your houses burn.”