Russian authorities have accused Kyiv of another attack on Moscow and its surroundings with drones, one of which hit a building in the capital that was damaged by a drone just days ago in a similar attack early on Sunday.
Russian officials have claimed that the intensified attacks on the capital region reflect failures in Ukraine’s counteroffensive, while Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that “the war is gradually coming back to Russian territory”, but stopped short of taking responsibility for the attacks.
The repeated drone strikes underscore Moscow’s vulnerability as Russia’s war in Ukraine drags into its 18th month.
Overnight, Russian forces attacked Kharkiv, Ukraine’s second largest city, with Iranian-made Shahed drones, according to Kharkiv Governor Oleh Syniehubov.
One drone struck a three-story building at an educational institution in the Saltivka district, partially destroying the top two floors of the building, as well as the roof.
No people were inside the building at the time of the attack.
Three more drone strikes hit the area of a sports complex in the Shevchenkivskyi district of Kharkiv.
A two-story building on the complex was partially damaged, and a 63-year-old security guard was injured, according to Mr Syniehubov.
On Tuesday morning, Russian forces shelled the Kherson region and hit a medical facility, killing a doctor and injuring one nurse, according to Regional Governor Roman Mrochko.
In Russia, the Defence Ministry said that it shot down two Ukrainian drones outside Moscow and jammed another, sending it crashing into a skyscraper in the Moscow City business district and damaging the building’s facade.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said the drone crashed into the same building that was damaged in a similar attack early Sunday.
IQ-Quarter, located 7.2 kms (4.5 miles) from the Kremlin, houses a number of government agencies, including the headquarters of the Ministry of Economic Development, the Ministry of Digital Development and Communications, and the Ministry of Industry and Trade.
Mr Sobyanin said the Tuesday attack didn’t result in any casualties.
It was not clear why the same building was hit twice in a row. In both incidents, the Russian military said the drones that hit the skyscraper were jammed before crashing.
Mr Sobyanin said the drone that struck the building on Tuesday hit the 21st floor, one of the floors housing the Economic Development ministry.
Photos from the site of the crash showed several panels of glass missing, exposing charred insides of the building, and about a dozen more damaged.
According to the mayor, 150 square meters of the building’s glass facade was damaged.
Mr Zelensky’s adviser Mykhailo Podolyak tweeted that Moscow “is rapidly getting used to a full-fledged war, which, in turn, will soon finally move to the territory of the ‘authors of the war’ to collect all their debts,” without confirming or denying Kyiv’s involvement in the attack.
The Russian military also said that Kyiv’s forces tried to attack two of its war ships in the Black Sea overnight using maritime drones.
Three drones targeted two patrol vessels, Sergei Kotov and Vasily Bykov, 340 kilometres (211 miles) southwest of the Russian-controlled city of Sevastopol on the annexed Crimean peninsula, the Defence Ministry reported.
All three drones were destroyed, the report said.
Russia’s land and sea border with Ukraine spans more than 2,200km (1,400 miles), meaning that much of the line separating the two countries is not covered by defence radar, which creates an opening for drones.
“Depending on where they are launched from, if there is a way to get through the initial line of defences, then there will probably be a very poor ability to track them in real time,” said professor Justin Bronk, an expert in military air power and technology at the Royal United Services Institute, a defence think tank in London.
The most advanced defence systems around Moscow “are typically optimised for ballistic missile defence and are looking at targets and objects which are coming in at extremely high speeds and from very high angles,” Mr Bronk said.
The attacks on Moscow and Crimea, which Russia illegally annexed from Ukraine in 2014, follow a deadly Russian missile strike on Kryvyi Rih, a city in central Ukraine and Mr Zelensky’s hometown.
Monday’s strike partially destroyed a residential building and killed at least six people, wounding dozens more.
