'Seun Ibukun-Oni, Abuja
DAILY COURIER - Ukraine has launched one of its largest drone attacks on Moscow, as it presses on with a major incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, Russian authorities said.
Russia’s Ministry of Defence said on Wednesday that air defence forces shot down 11 drones over Moscow and its surrounding region, with some reportedly downed over the city of Podolsk some 38km (24 miles) south of the Kremlin.
“This is one of the largest ever attempts to attack Moscow with drones,” Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on the Telegram messaging app. No damage or casualties were reported.
Drone attacks on Moscow are rare. Ukraine’s latest attempt to target the Russian capital appeared to be larger than an attack in May 2023, when at least eight drones were struck down.
The barrage was part of a broader attack on Russia, with the Ministry of Defence saying its air defence units destroyed 45 Ukrainian drones in total overnight.
In addition to the 11 drones destroyed over the Moscow region, 23 drones were downed in the border region of Bryansk, six in the border region of Belgorod, three in the Kaluga region, which borders the Moscow region to its northeast, and two in the embattled Kursk region, the ministry said.
Russia’s state news agency RIA reported that two drones were destroyed over the Tula region, which borders the Moscow region to its north.
Following the assault on Moscow, temporary restrictions were imposed overnight at Moscow’s Vnukovo, Domodedovo and Zhukovsky airports, but all three returned to normal operations later on Wednesday.
Reporting from the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, Al Jazeera’s defence editor, Alex Gatopoulos, said given how well protected Moscow and other Russian cities are “it remains to be seen whether this is a departure or just a one-off by Ukraine’s military command”.
Ukraine’s drone assault came as Russia struggles to push Ukrainian forces out of Kursk, two weeks after the surprise incursion.
Alexei Smirnov, the acting regional governor of Kursk, said one person was killed and two injured after a Ukrainian drone dropped an explosive on a vehicle.
Kyiv also claimed to have destroyed Russian pontoon bridges with US-made weapons to defend its incursion.
A video posted by Ukrainian special forces showed strikes on several pontoon crossings in the region, where Russia has reported that Ukraine has destroyed at least three bridges over the Seym river.
“Where do Russian pontoon bridges ‘disappear’ in the Kursk region? Operators … accurately destroy them,” Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces said on Telegram messenger.
In a televised address on Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the incursion was continuing and that his forces controlled some areas, but he gave no further details.
Hundreds of prisoners were taken and tens of thousands of civilians were forced to evacuate following Ukraine’s lightning raid on Kursk on August 6. Ukraine now claims to control 1,263sq km (488sq miles) of Kursk territory, including 93 settlements.
Russia’s electoral commission said it was postponing elections in seven municipalities in Kursk, posting on Telegram that the polls would take place once there was “a full guarantee of the security of voters”.
Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, promised on Wednesday that there would be no talks between the two countries until Ukraine is completely defeated.
“The empty chatter of intermediaries that no one had appointed about the wonderful peace is over,” he said on Telegram. “There will be no more negotiations until the complete defeat of the enemy.”
On Wednesday, Ukrainian forces said they had struck an S-300 antiaircraft missile system based in Russia’s southern Rostov region.
Ukraine’s military also said it had destroyed 50 of 69 attack drones launched by Russia during an overnight attack. One had entered Ukraine from Belarus and another had returned to Russia, it said.
Ukrainian drones had hit an oil storage facility in Rostov on Sunday, sparking a massive fire. On Wednesday, hundreds of Russian firefighters were still battling the blaze.
“Does this signal a departure in Ukraine’s strategic thinking? They’ve been targeting very successfully Russia’s industrial capacity to wage war,” said Al Jazeera’s Gatopoulos, adding that the output from the oil refinery was “down to a mere fraction of what it was beforehand”.
Meanwhile, Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Wednesday that its forces have taken control of the settlement of Zhelanne in the Pokrovsk district of Donetsk, as part of an overall drive to capture the entire Donetsk region.
“Our countries have large-scale joint plans, projects in the economic and humanitarian areas, we expect them to last for many years,” RIA quoted Putin as saying.
Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping had agreed at a summit in May to deepen their “comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation entering a new era”.
After meeting Putin in July, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Kyiv on Friday to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and said he will be discussing ending the war with Russia.
India has avoided condemning Russia’s invasion and is the world’s largest buyer of Russian weapons.
