One person was killed and three are injured so far in a Ukrainian drone attack last night against Moscow, which is the biggest attack during the war on the Russian capital, causing fires and disrupting air and rail transport in the region, world agencies reported, citing the governor of the Moscow region, Andrei Vorobyov, BTA reported.
"Today at 4 a.m. a massive drone attack began against Moscow and the Moscow region", Vorobyov wrote on "Telegram". "At the moment, it is known that one person has died and three have been injured," the governor of the Moscow region added.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that Russian air defenses shot down at least 69 drones over Moscow and the region, which approached the Russian capital in several waves.
Moscow and its surrounding region, with a population of about 21 million people, is one of the largest urban areas in Europe, along with Istanbul, Reuters notes. Russian aviation authorities said that all flights had been suspended at all four Moscow airports to ensure security after the midnight attacks.
All takeoffs and landings at Domodedovo and Zhukovsky airports were suspended for security reasons, Sobyanin said. The mayor of Moscow wrote on Telegram that at least 11 drones had been shot down in the area alone. He did not give details about casualties or damage.
Two other airports east of Moscow, in Yaroslavl and Nizhny Novgorod, more than 400 km east of the Russian capital, were also closed, according to Russian aviation authorities, quoted by DPA.
The governor of the Moscow region also reported that at least seven apartments had been damaged. According to Vorobyov, residents of a multi-storey apartment building in the Ramenskoye district of the Moscow region, about 50 km southeast of the Kremlin, were evacuated. The railway infrastructure at the Domodedovo railway station, about 35 km south of Moscow, was damaged by falling debris from a drone, RIA Novosti news agency reported.
Russian air defenses destroyed 337 Ukrainian drones overnight, with 91 of them shot down over the Moscow region, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Telegram, Reuters reported. The ministry said 126 Ukrainian drones were destroyed over Russia's Kursk region, which borders Ukraine, and the rest were shot down over eight other regions in Russia.