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Russia Says It Shot Down Waves of Drones Above Moscow
Officials said more than 30 drones had been intercepted over suburban areas of the Russian capital in what was the biggest such attack since the invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Reporting from Moscow
Russia said its air defenses had shot down waves of Ukrainian drones over Moscow’s suburbs on Sunday morning, responding to what it called a “massive” attack that wounded at least one person and temporarily halted flights at three regional airports.
Moscow’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, said on Telegram that 32 drones had been shot down over the suburbs of Domodedovo, Ramenskoye and Kolomna in the largest such attack on the capital since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. The Russian Defense Ministry said 34 drones were shot down above Moscow in the attack.
The governor of the Moscow region, Andrei Vorobyov, described the attack as “massive” and said that a 52-year-old woman was hospitalized with “burns to her face, neck and hands.”
Flights at three regional airports, Sheremetyevo, Domodedovo and Zhukovsky, were halted on Sunday morning for several hours because of the drone attack, which was also directed at other regions in western Russia.
In total, the Defense Ministry said it had shot down 70 Ukrainian drones over six Russian regions on Sunday, including the ones in Moscow. The Ukrainian military did not immediately make any announcements on the attacks reported by Russia.
Also in the attacks early Sunday, local officials said 23 drones had been shot down in the Russian border regions of Belgorod, Bryansk and Kursk, where drone strikes occur more regularly. Drones also struck the western Kaluga and Tula regions.
Russia often unleashes drones on Ukraine, and while Ukraine regularly hits Russian border regions, attacks on Moscow are less common.
Russia’s capital was last subject to a large drone attack in September, when 20 drones were shot down above the Moscow region, according to the Defense Ministry. During those strikes, one woman died — the first death in a Ukrainian attack near Moscow since the war began — and several other people were injured.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymyr Zelensky, touched on his country’s growing arsenal of long-range weapons in an evening address on Saturday. Mr. Zelensky said that domestic defense companies had ramped up production of long-range drones and missiles to shoot back at Russia and that “we will scale this up.”
Ukraine, he said, has reached what he called a “milestone” in developing a domestically produced ballistic missile. Kyiv now has produced 100 such missiles, he said, adding that he would provide no additional details.
In August, Mr. Zelensky said that Ukraine had test-fired the missile. Ukraine’s ballistic missile program began before the Russian invasion, working on a short-range missile called Hrim-2, or Thunder-2. It is not clear if any have been used in combat.
Ukraine also said it had been targeted by large numbers of drones since Saturday night. The country’s Defense Ministry said Russia had launched 145 drones across the country overnight, calling it a “record number” of drones in a post on Facebook. Of those, 62 were shot down, it said.
Drone strikes have become an almost nightly occurrence across Ukraine in recent months. In September and October, Kyiv was subject to attacks almost every night.
The attacks have come as Russian troops have advanced in the Donbas region of eastern Ukraine and have clawed back more territory in the Kursk region of western Russia that Ukrainian forces seized in a surprise offensive this year.
Ukraine’s top military commander, Gen. Oleksandr Syrsky, said Saturday in a social media post that he had told the American commander in Europe, Gen. Christopher G. Cavoli, that the battlefield situation was difficult and worsening, and that North Korean troops were now training to enter the fight on the Russian side.
Russia has also been stepping up missile attacks on Ukrainian cities. Late last week, 11 people were killed, most of them in the eastern city of Zaporizhzhia, and dozens wounded in Russian missile and drone strikes, according to Ukrainian officials.
In overnight strikes Saturday to Sunday throughout Ukraine, three people were killed and 18 wounded, the local authorities reported.
Last month the Ukrainian military said it tracked a record 2,023 pilotless aircraft against civilian and military targets, with the vast majority shot down or disabled by electronic warfare systems.
Andrew E. Kramer and Nataliia Novosolova contributed reporting from Kyiv, Ukraine.
Valerie Hopkins covers the war in Ukraine and how the conflict is changing Russia, Ukraine, Europe and the United States. She is based in Moscow. More about Valerie Hopkins
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