A Ukrainian drone attack on Moscow damaged a building in a central business district, Russian authorities said on Wednesday, in the sixth consecutive night of aerial attacks on Russia’s capital and its surrounding areas.
The latest strike on Moscow just comes hours after Ukrainian authorities said Russian artillery hit two villages near the eastern Ukraine city of Lyman, killing three people and wounding two others.
Russian air defense systems downed one Ukrainian drone in the Mozhaisky district and one in the Khimki district of the Moscow region, Russia’s Defense Ministry said in a statement.
A third drone crashed into a building in the Moscow City business district, located around five kilometers from the Kremlin, after being “suppressed” by air defenses, it said.
The RIA Novosti news agency reported an “explosion” was heard in the business district, adding that “a little later, smoke rose from the buildings in the same area.”
Air traffic at Moscow’s Vnukovo, Sheremetyevo and Domodedovo airports was briefly halted, the TASS state news agency reported, citing the aviation services.
Emergency services were responding to the incident, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on the Telegram messaging app, noting that “several windows were smashed in two adjacent five-story buildings.”
Sobyanin and the Defense Ministry said there were no reports of casualties.
In recent weeks, two other drone attacks were repelled over the Moscow City business district, each causing minor damage to the facades of high-rise buildings.
Russia and Ukraine have attacked each other’s cities with barrages of drones throughout the 18-month war, now bogged down as Ukrainian troops fight a grinding counteroffensive.