An Indian citizen died and three others suffered injuries on Sunday in Moscow as Ukraine launched “one of the largest” drone strikes since the war began. Russia reported four deaths and a dozen injuries. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy later confirmed the drone strikes, saying that they were “entirely justified.”
“Today in the Moscow region, as a result of a drone attack, one citizen of India was killed and three others were injured,” the Indian embassy in Russia said in a statement. Embassy officials visited the victims in hospital and coordinated with local authorities and the company employing the Indians, the statement read.
The Russian Embassy in India also responded: “The Russian Embassy mourns together with the family of the Indian worker and extends its sympathy to those injured by the Ukrainian attack on civilian facilities in the Moscow region”.
The massive overnight drone strike damaged residential buildings in Krasnogorsk, according to authorities. Russian officials said hundreds of drones were intercepted.
Eyewitness video shows a drone flying over Khimki, north of Moscow, as Russia’s capital region comes under a major wave of attacks. Local officials reported casualties, including at least one woman killed, amid widespread drone strikes and air defense activity across the area.…
— APT News (@APT__News)
Russian authorities said , including a woman in Khimki near Moscow and two men in the village of Pogorelki, north of the capital. Another man died after a drone struck a truck in the Belgorod region bordering Ukraine, local media reported.
One Indian worker has lost his life and three others have been injured in a drone attack in Moscow region earlier today. Embassy officials have visited the location and met the injured workers in the hospital.
The Embassy condoles the loss of life and is working with the…
— India in Russia (@IndEmbMoscow)
What was Ukraine’s target
Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said drones targeted areas near the city’s oil refinery and injured at least 12 people. He said the “technology” of the refinery hadn’t been damaged.
Sheremetyevo airport (Russia’s largest airport) said drone debris fell on its premises but flights continued without disruption.
Russia’s defence ministry said Sunday that air defence systems destroyed 556 drones overnight across the country. Shortly after midday local time, it reported that more than 1,000 drones were shot down or jammed in the last 24 hours. State agency Tass reported that Russian forces shot down 81 drones headed for Moscow.
Ukrainian President said that Ukraine launched the drones in response to Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities.
Our responses to Russia’s prolongation of the war and its attacks on our cities and communities are entirely justified. This time, Ukrainian long-range sanctions reached the Moscow region, and we are clearly telling the Russians: their state must end its war. Ukrainian drone and…
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa)
“Our responses to Russia’s prolongation of the war and attacks on our cities and communities are entirely justified. This time, Ukrainian long-distance sanctions have reached the Moscow region, and we are clearly telling the Russians: their state must end its war,” Zelenskyy said.
Zelenskyy said the drones covered a distance of more than 500 kilometers (310 miles) from Ukrainian territory to reach their targets. Ukraine was “overcoming” Russian air defence systems concentrated in and around the capital, it added.
Why Ukraine hit Russia with drones
Ukraine’s large-scale attack was likely a “retaliation or revenge that President Zelenskyy promised after the fierce attacks that Russia carried out on Kyiv,” Nigel Gould Davies, senior fellow for Russia and Eurasia at the International Institute for Strategic Studies, a London-based think tank, told The Associated Press.
The strikes referred to by Davies took place just after the end of a brief ceasefire that allowed Russia to hold its annual Victory Day parade on May 9 commemorating the Soviet victory over Nazi Germany during World War II.
Russia and Ukraine accused each other of repeatedly violating the pause in hostilities.
“It brings home the fact Ukraine has the capacity to strike at very significant scale at or around the Russian capital,” bringing the war to the doorsteps of Russians in a form “most unwelcome” to the Kremlin, Gould Davies told AP.
“There is no ongoing peace process to disrupt. What (the attack) is more likely to do is add to the darkening cloud of anxiety over Russia which has developed palpably over the last three or four months,” he said.
Ukrainian drones are also flying deep into Russia to strike oil facilities, sending up plumes of smoke that can be seen from space and bringing toxic rain to tourist destinations on the Black Sea. The attacks are aimed at slashing Moscow’s oil exports, a key source of funding for Russia’s grinding invasion of Ukraine.
8 wounded in Russian drone strikes on Ukraine
Ukrainian airforce claimed it shot down or jammed 279 Russian drones out of 287 sent overnight into Sunday. The strikes wounded 8 people in Ukraine’s central Dnipropetrovsk region: three in the regional capital of Dnipro, four in President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih, and one in the district of Synelkove, Ukraine’s state emergency service said.
Residential buildings were damaged in all three locations, the service said.
(With inputs from agencies)
