MOSCOW – Russian air defenses shot down a Ukrainian drone as it flew toward an undisclosed target in Moscow on Friday, according to the defense ministry, the latest in a string of drone attacks on the Russian capital.
Earlier, Moscow’s Vnukovo and Kaluga airports, located around 150 kilometers (95 miles) southwest of the capital, were temporarily closed owing to a suspected drone flight. They reopened afterwards.
.”… an attempt by the Kyiv regime to carry out a terrorist attack on a facility in Moscow by an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) was thwarted,” the ministry said in a statement, adding that the drone was blocked and crashed in a forest west of Moscow.
“There are no casualties and no damage,” it stated.
Earlier, Vnukovo airport said it was forced to suspend all flights “for reasons beyond the airport’s control,” adding that some planes had been rerouted to other airports in the Moscow region. It provided no additional information.
Flights resumed later at both Vnukovo and Kaluga airports.
Drone air strikes have risen deep inside Russia since a drone was destroyed over the Kremlin in early May. Later in May, civilian sections of the capital were struck, and earlier this month, a Moscow business zone was targeted twice in three days.
Russia stated on Thursday that it had shot down 13 Ukrainian drones attempting to strike Moscow and Crimea, which Russia took from Ukraine in 2014.
In recent days, Ukrainian remotely piloted boats, sometimes known as drones, assaulted a Russian petroleum tanker and a navy installation at Russia’s Black Sea port of Novorossiysk.
Although officials have openly expressed delight with the attacks on Russian territory, Ukraine normally does not comment on who is behind them.