INJURIES AND EVACUATIONS IN MOSCOW
Two people were injured while some apartment blocks were briefly evacuated, according to Moscow’s mayor. Residents said they heard loud bangs followed by the smell of petrol. Some filmed a drone being shot down and a plume of smoke.
Tuesday’s early-morning drone volley targeted some of Moscow’s most prestigious districts including where Putin and the elite have residences. He was later in the Kremlin and received a briefing on the attack, a spokesman said.
Afterwards, Putin said Ukraine’s biggest ever drone strike on Moscow was an attempt to frighten and provoke Russia, and that air defences around the capital would be strengthened.
Ukraine, Putin said, had chosen the path of trying “to intimidate Russia, Russian citizens and attacks on residential buildings”.
Civilian targets in Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities have since the earliest days of the war been struck repeatedly by Russian drones and missiles.
But Tuesday marked only the second time Moscow had come under direct fire. There was an apparent drone strike on the Kremlin earlier this month that Moscow also blamed on Ukraine and said was meant to kill Putin.
The White House said it was still gathering information on the reports of drones striking in Moscow.
“We do not support attacks inside of Russia. That’s it. Period,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at a briefing. Washington is a major supplier of weaponry to Ukraine on the condition it uses it to defend itself and to retake Ukrainian territory occupied by Russian forces.
Russian lawmaker Maxim Ivanov called it the most serious assault on Moscow since Nazi Germany’s invasion in World War Two, saying no Russian could now avoid “the new reality”.
Russian state television gave the attacks calm coverage, and many Muscovites carried on with their lives with the fatalism for which they are famous. Most shrugged their shoulders and many voiced sadness that the conflict seemed to be spreading.
Olga, who said she lived near to the site of one of the drone collisions on Profsoyuznaya Street, called the strikes “logical, to be expected … what else were we waiting for?”
