“Our strength must be felt in different corners of Russia. And so it will be,” Andrii Yermak, right-hand man of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, wrote this message on Telegram on Wednesday, a few hours after Moscow suffered one of the most intense attacks with bomb drones in recent months. Ten of these aerial vehicles were intercepted in the early hours of the morning on the outskirts of the Russian capital, according to its mayor, Sergei Sobyanin. The Russian Ministry of Defense has raised the number to 11, while the number of drones shot down throughout the country amounts, according to the Russian authorities, to 45.
Sobyanin said the attack had caused no damage or casualties. As usual, operations at Moscow airports were temporarily halted for civil aviation. Other provinces affected by Ukrainian drone attacks included the border provinces of Bryansk, Belgorod and Kursk, as well as Oryol and Kaluga. The previous largest Ukrainian attempt to bomb the capital was in December 2023, when Sobyanin reported that nine drones were shot down in the vicinity of Moscow.
Ukraine has been regularly bombing Russian territory with drones since 2023, and Moscow is no exception. In May 2023, two such aircraft almost hit the Kremlin. These attacks are usually the responsibility of the Intelligence Services of the Ministry of Defense (GUR) and the Security Services (SBU). The main targets are usually military airfields and energy infrastructure. A diesel storage plant in the Russian province of Rostov was destroyed on August 18 by Ukrainian drones. Four Russian airports were also hit on August 14 in a simultaneous action that Zelensky celebrated on his social networks.
The GUR revealed this Wednesday through the newspaper Pravda The GUR carried out a drone bombing of the Savasleika military airport in the Nizhny Novgorod region, some 800 kilometres from Ukraine, on 16 August. The airfield has been attacked before, most recently on 13 August, but the GUR claims that on this latest occasion it caused what could be the greatest damage to Russian aviation in a single operation: according to intelligence services, one MiG-31 fighter and two Il-76 cargo planes were destroyed, in addition to causing damage to five other aircraft. A similar level of impact can be achieved mainly with explosives loaded with cluster munitions, which can cause minor damage but over a larger radius.
The Ukrainian president added that “there are still things that cannot be achieved with drones,” referring to the pressure he is putting on allies such as the United States, the United Kingdom, France and Germany to allow him to use his long-range missiles on Russian soil.
Targeting the Russian capital has another strategic significance, as Timofi Milovanov, a former Ukrainian economy minister and prominent political analyst of the war, wrote on X, the former Twitter account: “This increase in drone activity in Moscow suggests that Ukraine will likely increase the number of drones in future attacks, potentially as a strategy to bolster its assets in future negotiations with Russia.”
Knowing what’s happening outside means understanding what’s going to happen inside, so don’t miss anything.
KEEP READING
Drones bombing kyiv
kyiv has also suffered several waves of Russian drone bombs during the night and early morning. Anti-aircraft guns have been sounded again on Wednesday morning in several Ukrainian provinces, including Kiev, due to the threat of Russian ballistic missiles.
Twelve aircraft were shot down on Tuesday night as they approached the Ukrainian capital. Russia worked hard last spring to destroy Ukraine’s power grid, taking advantage of weakened defences due to a shortage of ammunition and a lack of more units, especially the American Patriot anti-aircraft missiles. Zelensky’s calls to his allies to provide more anti-aircraft systems paid off and the situation has improved substantially over the summer. The German government confirmed on Tuesday that it would deliver four new Iris-T anti-aircraft batteries to kyiv by the end of the year.
The Ukrainian Air Force reported on Wednesday morning that it had shot down 50 of the 69 Shahed drones fired by Russia in the past 12 hours. One of these Iranian-made drones entered and left Ukrainian territory to fly over Belarus and then re-enter Ukrainian airspace, according to the media outlet TSN. Belarusian President Aleksandr Lukashenko has once again raised tensions with Ukraine by moving a large part of his ground military forces to the border. Belarus played a key role in the Russian siege of kyiv in 2022 by allowing Kremlin troops to pass through its territory.
On Wednesday, it was also reported that a Russian bomb had injured six children in Malokaterinivka, a village in Zaporizhia province. The children, aged between 11 and 17, were in a playground. Three of the victims are in hospital in serious condition.
Follow all the international information atFacebook andXor inour weekly newsletter.
