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Russia has for the first time reported a civilian death in a Moscow suburb after Ukraine launched a mass drone attack overnight, forcing the capital to suspend flights at three of its four international airports.
A 46-year-old woman was killed and four people were injured after a drone smashed into a residential building in the Ramensky suburb of Moscow on Tuesday, damaging half of the apartments in the building, according to the Moscow region governor, Andrey Vorobyov.
The attack follows a string of deadly Russian strikes across Ukraine in recent weeks, including the killing of over 50 people in a single attack on the central Ukrainian city of Poltava.
The Russian defence ministry claimed to have intercepted 144 drones over the country, including 20 over the Moscow region.
Though Ukraine has launched numerous drone attacks on Russian military infrastructure and energy facilities since the start of Moscow’s full-scale invasion, none have produced any publicly reported civilian deaths outside of the border regions of Russia.
Although state media reported that damage in the Ramensky suburb was caused by fragments from an intercepted drone, videos shared on social media appeared to show a direct hit, with a sudden, massive explosion rocking the middle of the multistorey apartment block at night.
“There was wreckage of the drone left on the ground, which needs to be cleared,” Vorobyov said on his Telegram channel after a visit to the site. “For safety reasons, we have decided to evacuate the residents of five neighbouring houses.”
The governor said a drone also hit an apartment on the ninth floor of another residential building in the same area, injuring one person.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov declined to comment on the state of Russia’s anti-drone defences during a call with reporters on Tuesday, saying that such evaluations should be done “by experts”. But he praised the military for gaining “considerable experience” in intercepting drones.
Dozens of flights were suspended for several hours after three of Moscow’s major international airports were closed. Almost 50 flights were redirected from Vnukovo, Domodedovo and Zhukovsky airports to other airports, the Tass state news agency said, quoting Rosaviatsiya, the federal agency for air transport.
Pieces of an intercepted drone fell on the runway of Zhukovsky airport, said the Mash Telegram channel, which is known for its ties to law enforcement. It shared a video apparently filmed from inside the airport at night showing a fire on the runway outside.
By 8am local time, restrictions on the airports had been lifted, Rosaviatsiya said. Some flights were also suspended at the airport in Kazan, capital of the Tatarstan region in central Russia.
Foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said after the attack that the weaker Kyiv’s positions were “on the ground”, the more it resorted to “terrorist activities”, the Ria state news agency reported.
Russia has been launching dozens of deadly strikes on cities across Ukraine in recent weeks, hitting residential areas, including a home in Lviv last week when four members of a family of five were killed.
Its attacks have also destroyed much of Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, forcing Ukrainians to live with painful electricity blackouts and to face the prospect of another cold winter without sufficient power.
Ukraine embarrassed Moscow’s forces this summer by seizing swaths of Russia’s Kursk region in a surprise offensive, and Russia has so far failed to retake the area. Russia’s army, however, continues to push hard against overstretched Ukrainian forces on the Donbas frontline in eastern Ukraine, particularly in the direction of the Ukrainian city of Pokrovsk.
For Kyiv, the Kursk invasion may be a way to strengthen its position in any future negotiations with Moscow, particularly over the vast areas of Ukraine seized and occupied by Russian troops, and now claimed by Moscow as constitutionally part of Russia.
On Tuesday, former Russian defence minister and current secretary of the security council Sergei Shoigu said Russia would refuse to speak with Ukraine while its forces remained in Kursk.
“As long as we haven’t thrown them off of our territory, naturally we will hold no talks with them,” he said.