Moscow was hit by drones Tuesday morning, in what appeared to be the first attack on residential areas of the Russian capital since the invasion of Ukraine.
It comes weeks after an alleged drone attack on the Kremlin itself and following days of deadly Russian bombardment against civilians in Kyiv, as events far from the front lines take the spotlight ahead of Ukraine’s planned counteroffensive.
Tuesday’s incident caused damage to some buildings in Moscow and forced residents to evacuate homes, officials said, though the Kremlin largely shrugged off the dramatic display that its war was increasingly coming home.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said the attack sought to intimidate the public, and commended the work of the capital’s air defense.
The Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement Tuesday that eight unmanned aerial vehicles were involved in the strikes. All drones were destroyed, it added, with three losing control after being jammed and the other five shot down by anti-aircraft systems.
The ministry blamed Ukraine for what it called a “terrorist attack.”
Ukrainian presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak said in an interview that his country “has nothing directly to do” with the drone attacks on Moscow but was “pleased to observe and predict an increase in the number of attacks.”
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that drones had “caused minor damage to several buildings.” In a series of posts on the Telegram messaging app, he said two people “sought medical attention” and there were no serious injuries.
He added that some residents were evacuated from some parts of the two affected buildings “for safety reasons” while emergency services were working on the scene.
The regional governor, Andrei Vorobyov, said that “several drones” were shot down as they approached the city.
Photos and video shared on Russian social media appeared to show a drone flying over a town in the western Moscow region, and smoke and the sound of an explosion in a village in the same area.
Russian authorities said an investigation had been launched into the attacks.
A spokesperson for President Joe Biden’s National Security Council said, “As a general matter, we do not support attacks inside of Russia. We have been focused on providing Ukraine with the equipment and training they need to retake their own sovereign territory, and that’s exactly what we’ve done.”
The NSC spokesperson noted that Tuesday was the 17th time this month that the Ukrainian capital was hit by another Russian attack.
Kyiv authorities reported strikes on several districts in the city, with one person reported killed and at least seven more injured.
Russia launched “several waves” of attacks with a combination of drones and missiles, officials said, after a rare daytime attack Monday that marked an intensifying assault on the city.
Speaking on Ukrainian television Sunday, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said he had qualms about how people in Moscow “rest” while Kyiv was being brutalized by the Russian forces.
But while Ukraine’s capital has faced relentless bombardment, Tuesday’s drone strikes were unprecedented for Moscow.
It comes four weeks after Russia said two drones targeted the Kremlin, in what it called an assassination attempt on Putin‘s life. Moscow blamed Kyiv for that alleged incident as well, a charge Ukrainian officials denied.
Putin framed the Moscow attack as a response from Ukraine after Kyiv suffered the largest drone attack since the start of the war Sunday, the day it marked the anniversary of its founding.
In comments to state news agency Tass nearly 10 hours after Tuesday’s incident, the Russian leader said Moscow’s air defense systems had worked “satisfactorily,” although there was “something to work on.” Still, he said there was an understanding of how to seal any gaps.
“I am not so much worried about that, as the attempts to get a response from Russia,” Putin said. “That appears to be the goal. They provoke a mirror response from us. We will see what we will do about that.”
The war has been creeping deeper into Russia in recent months, with drone attacks on strategic sites and last week’s raid into the Belgorod region near the border, which was claimed by anti-Putin militias.
Ukraine has frequently denied responsibility for the growing wave of attacks within Russia.
“Today’s raid on Moscow somewhat equalized the situation between the capital and Belgorod,” Abbas Gallyamov, a Russian political analyst and former Putin speechwriter, wrote on Telegram. “The inhabitants of the latter will not be so offended now, the population of the former will not care a little less.”
Russian mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin blamed his country’s military leaders for allowing the drone attacks.
In an expletive-ridden audio statement on his social media channels, he criticized the Russian Defense Ministry — the latest public rebuke for a ruling elite he recently warned could not just lose the war, but also lead the nation toward a revolution similar to the events of 1917.
“The fact that they are flying to Rublyovka, to your home, to hell with it! Let your houses burn,” he said, referring to an upscale area of Moscow popular with Russian oligarchs. “And what do ordinary people do when drones with explosives crash into their windows?”
Russian authorities’ rush to downplay the significance of the attack on the capital was “striking,” one analyst said.
The system is fully directed at “self-praise for the sake of salvation,” while expecting “patience” from the Russian people, Tatiana Stanovaya, a nonresident scholar at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace and the founder and head of the political analysis firm R.Politik, wrote on Telegram. “That remains to be seen,” she added.
