Russia: Moscow targeted by drone attack of unprecedented scale

The Moscow region has been On Sunday morning, Russia was the target of a drone attack of an unprecedented scale since the start of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine, with around thirty aircraft shot down according to the authorities. Russians who said a woman had been injured.

The Russian Defense Ministry announced on Telegram that it had “thwarted an attempted terrorist attack by the kyiv regime,” destroying a total of 70 drones in the morning, including 34 in the Moscow region.

The others were shot down in the Moscow-bordering regions of Kaluga (7) and Tula (2), and in three regions bordering Ukraine, those of Bryansk (14), Oriol (7), and Kursk (6).

Describing on Telegram a “massive attack,” the governor of the Moscow region, Andrei Vorobiov, said that the interceptions had taken place in particular over the towns of Ramenskoye and Domodedovo, about forty kilometers southeast of central Moscow and near airports.

This operation in the suburbs of Moscow comes four days after a massive attack by Russian drones on the Ukrainian capital, targeted almost daily for a month.

kyiv says it is carrying out its strikes on Russia, which usually mainly target energy sites, in response to the deadly Russian bombings that have been destroying its infrastructure and devastating its cities since Vladimir Putin launched a large-scale assault on Ukraine in February 2022.

Firefighters stand near a house damaged by a drone attack in the village of Stanovoye, Moscow region, on November 10, 2024 © AFP – TATYANA MAKEYEVA

Russia reports shooting down Ukrainian drones over its territory almost daily, but they rarely target the Russian capital, which is some 500 kilometers (310 miles) from the Ukrainian border.

On Sunday, a 52-year-old woman was injured by shrapnel, suffering burns to her face, neck and hands, and two houses were set on fire, Governor Andrei Vorobiov said.

Russian aviation authorities suspended flights to and from three airports for nearly two hours: Sheremetyevo, Domodedovo and Zhukovsky. The latter two, located southeast of the capital, are close to the sites where drones were shot down.

On September 10, Russian authorities announced the death of a woman in a Ukrainian strike that hit a residential building in the city of Ramenskoye, southeast of Moscow.

In August, the Russian capital also suffered “one of the most significant” attacks from Ukraine with around twenty drones intercepted, according to its mayor, Sergei Sobyanin.

In the summer of 2023, devices were destroyed above Moscow's business district, and in May 2023, two devices were shot down within the Kremlin.

– The Ukrainian army in difficulty –

On the front, Ukrainian troops are struggling, suffering from their inferiority in weapons and personnel, and retreating in multiple sectors in eastern Ukraine, where Russian troops have been advancing for months.

Furthermore, thousands of North Korean soldiers are, according to kyiv and the West, deployed in the Russian region of Kursk, where the Ukrainian army has controlled several hundred square kilometers since its surprise operation launched on August 6. kyiv assures that they have already been engaged in combat.

A Russian police officer records the testimony of a resident of the village of Stanovoye, in the Moscow region, following a drone attack, November 10, 2024 © AFP – TATYANA MAKEYEVA

The West, however, refuses to authorize kyiv to strike deep into Russian territory with the weapons it supplies and to shoot down Russian devices targeting Ukrainian cities, for fear that this could lead to an escalation.

And with Donald Trump's victory in the American presidential election, the question arises of the sustainability of American support, which has allowed Ukraine to resist Russian troops since February 2022.

“The situation in the theater of hostilities is not in favor of the kyiv regime, the West has a choice: continue its financing (of Ukraine) and the destruction of the Ukrainian population or admit the existing realities and start negotiating,” warned this week the head of the Russian Security Council and former Defense Minister, Sergei Shoigu.

Sunday's attack also comes as Russia hosts senior officials from around fifty African countries in Sochi (southwest), for a conference aimed at strengthening ties between Moscow and Africa.

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