‘Where are the famous Russian air defenses?’ Drone hits Moscow skyscraper for second time in three days
On the night of July 31, multiple drones “attempted to fly into Moscow but were downed by Russian air defense forces,” according to Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin.
One drone crashed into the same tower in Moscow City that was previously damaged by a drone just two days ago, on July 30. The new attack left a 150-square-meter (1,615-square-foot) section of the building’s facade damaged at its 21st floor. No people were killed or injured.
After the incident, the Russian Defense Ministry announced that it foiled an “attempted terrorist attack by the Kyiv regime” on “targets in Moscow and the Moscow region.”
According to the ministry, three Ukrainian drones were involved in the attack. Two of them, the authorities said, were shot down by air defense forces over the Moscow region’s Odintsovo and Naro-Fominsk districts, while the third was downed by electronic warfare equipment, which caused it to lose control and “crash on the territory of the non-residential complex Moscow City.”
According to the Russian state news agency TASS, the drone hit a building in the IQ-quarter complex, which contains the offices of Russia’s Finance Ministry, Economic Development Ministry, and Industry and Trade Ministry. According to the Telegram channel Astra, the Economic Development Ministry has offices on the 21st floor of the building that was hit.
Pieces of the drone that hit the building were recovered by the authorities and will be sent away for an “explosive-technical examination,” according to emergency services. The building’s supporting structures were reportedly not damaged by the attack.
Moscow’s Vnukovo Airport briefly stopped operating on Tuesday as a result of the attack.
According to a “high-ranking official in the air defense system” who spoke to Russian state media, the drones used in Monday night’s attack were sent from Ukrainian territory. A source from Russia’s emergency services corroborated the claim.
Later on Tuesday, Yuriy Ignat, a spokesman for Ukraine’s Air Force, commented on the attacks:
Where are the famous echeloned Russian air defenses? […] Ukrainian troops have a certain level of experience shooting down [drones]. But Russian troops can’t even deal with drones reaching areas that have already seen them in the past. And we hope they won’t get the experience [of downing them].
Zelensky administration advisor Mykhailo Podolyak said on Twitter that Moscow is “rapidly getting used to full-scale war, which will soon move conclusively to the territory of the war’s ‘authors,’ so that all of their debts can be collected.” Everything that happens in Russia from that point on, he said, will follow an “objective historical process,” which will entail “more unidentified drones, more collapse, more civil conflicts, and more war.”
Moscow has been targeted by multiple drone attacks since the start of Russia’s full-scale war in Ukraine. On the night of May 2, 2023, two drones attacked the dome of the Senate Palace in the Kremlin. The Russian authorities called the incident a “terrorist attack” and said it was an assassination attempt against President Vladimir Putin (who was located in a different presidential residence at the time of the attack).
On the morning of May 30, three drones crashed into residential buildings in the New Moscow suburb and the city’s center. On June 21, three drones were shot down in New Moscow and the Naro-Fominsk District. On July 4, multiple drones were downed while approaching the capital.
On the night of July 23, two drones hit buildings in Moscow. One of them crashed into a business center that was under construction on the city’s Likhachev Prospekt, while the second hit a vacant building belonging to the Defense Ministry’s Central Military Orchestra. On July 28, one drone was downed in the city’s Troitsky Administrative District.