Ukrainian drone strikes on Russia kill and wound, while debris lands on Moscow airport

Russia has repeatedly launched similar attacks on the Ukrainian capital and other cities during the war, and one expert said the strikes appeared to be retaliation for recent Russian attacks on Kiev.

Eight people have been injured in Russian drone strikes on Ukraine, Ukrainian authorities say.

In Ukraine’s attacks on Russia, a woman was killed after a drone hit her home in Khimki, a Russian city just northwest of Moscow, and two men died in the village of Pogorelki, located 10 kilometers (6 miles) north of the capital, according to local governor Andrei Vorobyev.

Ukrainian drones had also damaged unspecified “infrastructure” and several high-rise buildings, Vorobyev said on social media.

One man was killed after a drone struck a truck in the Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, according to local authorities.

In Moscow itself, at least 12 people were injured during the overnight strike, most at the entrance to the city’s oil refinery, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said. Sobyanin reported that the refinery’s ‘technology’ was not damaged.

Russia’s largest airport – Moscow’s Sheremetyevo – said drone debris had fallen on its premises without causing damage or affecting flights.

Russian defenses shot down 81 drones heading towards Moscow, state agency Tass reported, citing Sobyanin, marking one of the biggest attacks on the city since Russia launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine on February 24, 2022.

Russian air defenses destroyed 556 drones over Russia overnight, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday morning. Shortly after noon local time, it reported that more than a thousand drones had been shot down or jammed in the past 24 hours.

Zelenskyy said the drones flew more than 500 kilometers from Ukrainian territory and that Ukraine “overcame” Russian air defense systems concentrated in and around the capital.

“Our reactions to Russia’s extension of the war and attacks on our cities and communities are fully justified. This time, Ukrainian long-range sanctions have reached the Moscow region, and we are clearly telling the Russians: their state must end its war,” Zelenskyy said.

Revenge for Russian attacks, says expert

Nigel Gould Davies, senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based think tank, said Ukraine’s large-scale attack appeared to be “the retaliation or vengeance that President Zelenskyy promised after Russia’s fierce attacks on Kiev.”

Those attacks came immediately after the end of a brief ceasefire that allowed Russia to hold its annual Victory Day parade on May 9 to commemorate the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany during World War II.

“It makes it clear that Ukraine has the ability to strike on a very large scale in or around the Russian capital,” bringing the war to the Russians in a way that would be “very unwelcome” to the Kremlin, Gould Davies told The Associated Press.

“There is no ongoing peace process to disrupt. It is more likely that the attack will add to the darkening cloud of anxiety about Russia that has clearly developed over the past three or four months,” he said.

He cited a combination of factors, including recent setbacks on the Russian battlefield, a deteriorating economic situation at home and the Kremlin’s increasing crackdown on the internet, including in Moscow and Russia’s second-largest city, St. Petersburg.

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