Moscow, Crimea hit by drone strikes, Russia says, as southern Ukraine gets bombarded – National | 24CA News
Russian authorities accused Ukraine of launching a drone assault on Moscow early Monday that noticed one of many plane fall close to the Defence Ministry’s important headquarters, whereas the Russian navy unleashed new strikes on port infrastructure in southern Ukraine.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin mentioned there have been no casualties when the drones struck two nonresidential buildings in Moscow. Separately, a Ukrainian drone struck an ammunition depot in Russian-annexed Crimea, forcing a halt in site visitors on a serious freeway, Russian authorities mentioned.
In Moscow, Russian media reported that one of many drones fell on the Komsomolsky freeway close to the capital’s centre, shattering store home windows and broken the roof of a home nearly 200 metres away from the towering riverside Defense Ministry constructing. The ministry’s important headquarters has Pantsyr air protection techniques positioned on the roof.
It wasn’t instantly clear whether or not the drone focused the Defence Ministry’s headquarters, which is situated 2.7 kilometres away from the Kremlin, or was heading to another goal in central Moscow.
Another drone hit an workplace constructing in southern Moscow, gutting a number of higher flooring — extra seen harm in comparison with earlier drone strikes on the Russian capital.
Emergency staff had been inspecting the harm and site visitors was halted on sections of highways the place the drones fell.
Ukrainian authorities didn’t instantly declare duty for the strike, which was the second drone assault on the Russian capital this month.
In the earlier assault on July 4, the Russian navy mentioned 4 of the 5 drones had been downed by air defenses on the outskirts of Moscow and the fifth was jammed by digital warfare means and compelled down. The raid prompted authorities to briefly prohibit flights at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport and divert flights to 2 different Moscow airports.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov famous Monday that “the intensity of attempts to attack our regions with drones has grown.”
“So measures are being taken, a very intense daily 24-hour work is underway,” Peskov mentioned, with out providing any particulars about whether or not Russia’s air defence techniques have been enhanced due to the elevated assaults.
Russian authorities mentioned that one other Ukrainian drone assault early Monday struck an ammunition depot in northern Crimea and compelled a halt in site visitors on a serious freeway and a railway crossing the Black Sea peninsula that was illegally annexed by Moscow in 2014. Railway site visitors was restored a number of hours later.
The Moscow-appointed head of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, mentioned that authorities additionally ordered the evacuation of a number of villages inside a five-kilometer (three-mile) radius of the depot that was hit.
Aksyonov mentioned the navy shot down or jammed 11 attacking drones, whereas the Defense Ministry claimed later that 11 of the 17 attacking drones had been jammed and crashed into the Black Sea and one other three had been shot down.
Mykhailo Fedorov, Ukraine’s digital transformation minister, famous on his messaging app channel that Monday’s drone assaults on Moscow and Crimea signaled that Russia’s digital warfare means and air defenses are “less and less able to protect the skies of the invaders,” including that “there will be more of it.”
Ukrainska Pravda reported that the drone assault on Moscow was a particular operation by Ukrainian navy intelligence.
On Saturday, a earlier drone assault on Crimea hit one other ammunition depot, sending enormous plumes of black smoke skyward and likewise forcing the evacuation of residents,
Russian forces, in the meantime, struck port infrastructure on the Danube River in southern Ukraine with exploding drones early Monday, wounding seven folks and destroying a grain hangar and storage for different cargo, Ukrainian officers mentioned. Ukraine’s navy reported downing three of the attacking drones.
The strike was the newest in a barrage of assaults that has broken important port infrastructure in southern Ukraine previously week. The Kremlin has described the strikes as retribution for final week’s Ukrainian strike on the essential Kerch Bridge linking Russia with Crimea.
Speaking on the Aspen Security Forum by way of video hyperlink over the weekend, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy known as the bridge a respectable goal for Ukraine, noting that Russia has used it to ferry navy provides and it have to be “neutralized.”
Since Moscow canceled a landmark grain deal per week in the past amid Kyiv’s grinding efforts to retake its occupied territories, Russia has launched repeated assaults on Odesa, a key hub for exporting grain.
On Sunday, at the least one particular person was killed and 22 others wounded in an assault on Odesa that severely broken 25 landmarks throughout the town, together with the Transfiguration Cathedral.
UNESCO strongly condemned the assault on the cathedral and different heritage websites and mentioned it is going to ship a mission in coming days to evaluate harm. Odesa’s historic middle was declared a UNESCO World Heritage website earlier this yr, and the company mentioned the Russian assaults contradict Moscow’s pledge to take precautions to spare World Heritage websites in Ukraine.
The Russian navy denied that it focused the Transfiguration Cathedral, claiming with out providing proof that it was doubtless struck by a Ukrainian air protection missile. Peskov on Monday echoed that declare, insisting with none proof that the accusations towards Russia “are an absolute lie.”
Overall, a complete of 10 folks have been wounded in Russian assaults on Ukraine over the previous 24 hours, in response to Ukrainian officers.
In addition to these injured within the Odesa area, one civilian was wounded in the course of the shelling of 24 cities and villages within the partially occupied Kherson area, whereas one other was wounded in artillery fireplace near the Zaporizhzhia nuclear energy plant, Ukraine’s presidential workplace mentioned.
A 70-year-old girl was additionally reportedly wounded after FAB-250 guided aerial bombs had been dropped on the village of Kucherivka in Ukraine’s Kharkiv area.
