The building, 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.
In both incidents, the Russian military said the drones that hit the skyscraper were jammed before crashing.
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Drones allegedly from Ukraine hit high-rise buildings in Moscow central districts
Drones allegedly from Ukraine hit high-rise buildings in Moscow central districts
On Sunday, Russia said it had downed Ukrainian drones targeting the capital in an attack that damaged two office towers in Moscow-City, a commercial development.
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.
Russian news agency Interfax cited Darya Levchenko, an adviser to the economic development minister, as saying that the ministry’s staff was working from home on Tuesday, while damage to the office was being assessed.
Russia’s defence ministry blamed Tuesday’s attack on Ukraine, saying that multiple facilities in the Moscow region had been targeted.
“Two Ukrainian (unmanned aerial vehicles) were destroyed by air defence systems over the territory of the Odintsovo and Narofominsk districts of Moscow region,” the ministry said in a statement.
“Another drone was suppressed by electronic warfare and, having lost control, crashed on the territory of the Moscow-City non-residential building complex.”
Soon after the drone attack, Moscow’s Vnukovo international airport was briefly closed, Tass state news agency reported.
“Vnukovo was temporarily closed for arrivals and departures, the planes are redirected to other airports,” emergency services said, according to Tass, which later reported that it had resumed normal operations.
The same airport was briefly closed after Sunday’s attack, and earlier this month, a volley of drone attacks disrupted air traffic at Vnukovo, to the city’s southwest.
Moscow and its environs, located about 500km (310 miles) from the Ukrainian border, had rarely been targeted during the conflict in Ukraine until several drone attacks this year.
Also, Russia said that it repelled an overnight Ukrainian drone attack targeting its patrol boats in the Black Sea.
UK sanctions Russian judges as Putin critic jailed for 25 years
UK sanctions Russian judges as Putin critic jailed for 25 years
“During the night, Ukrainian armed forces tried without success to attack with three drones the ‘Sergei Kotov’ and ‘Vasily Bykov’, patrol boats of the Russian fleet in the Black Sea,” the defence ministry said in a statement.
“The three naval enemy drones were destroyed”, it said, adding that the boats were attacked 340km (210 miles) southwest of Sevastopol, the base of Russia’s Black Sea fleet on the annexed Crimea peninsula.
Tuesday’s attacks are the latest in a series of drone assaults – including on the Kremlin and Russian towns near the border with Ukraine – that Moscow has blamed on Kyiv.
On Monday, a missile strike on a residential building killed six and wounded dozens in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown of Kryvyi Rig.
A day earlier Zelensky had warned that war was coming to Russia.
“Gradually, the war is returning to the territory of Russia – to its symbolic centres and military bases, and this is an inevitable, natural and absolutely fair process,” Zelensky said Sunday.
The Kremlin on Monday called the recent strikes on the capital an “act of desperation” by Ukraine following setbacks on the battlefield.
Ukraine began its long-awaited counteroffensive in June but has made modest advances in the face of stiff resistance from Russian forces on the frontline.
Additional reporting by Reuters, Associated Press
