Russia has blamed Kyiv for a second drone attack on Moscow within just three days, as further damage was reported in the capital's financial district on Tuesday.
A drone targeting Moscow flew at a tower in the city's financial district on Tuesday, the same building damaged in a drone attack two days earlier, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said in a Telegram post.
The exterior of the 21st floor of the building was affected, with 150 square meters' worth of glass broken, Sobyanin said. The high-rise building is home to Russia's Ministry of Economic Development, its Digital Ministry and the Ministry for Industry and Trade.
The drone attacks are the latest in a series of unmanned vehicle strikes to hit Moscow. The government previously reported drone strikes on Sunday, and at several other times in recent weeks. At the end of May, the Kremlin was targeted in what is considered one of the most high-profile drone assaults on the capital.
"Indeed, the threat exists, it is obvious. Measures are being taken," Kremlin press secretary Dmitry Peskov, said on Tuesday. The structural supports of the 42-floor skyscraper are still "undamaged and intact," state news agency Tass reported.
Moscow has blamed Kyiv, but Ukraine does not typically take responsibility for attacks within Russian territory, which is a contentious topic among Ukraine's allies.
Newsweek reached out to the Ukrainian Defense Ministry for comment.
"Two Ukrainian UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) were destroyed in the air by air defense systems" over two regions in west Moscow, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Tuesday. "Another drone was suppressed by electronic warfare and, having lost control, crashed on the territory of the Moscow City non-residential building complex," it added, referring to the financial district.
In a similar statement on Sunday, Russia said one Ukrainian UAV had been destroyed by air defenses above the capital's Odintsovo district, with two drones brought down by electronic warfare. The drones lost control and crashed into the Moscow City complex, Russia said at the weekend.
Moscow also said on Tuesday that Ukraine launched three semi-submersible unmanned boats at Russian ships in the Black Sea, following a wave of 25 airborne drones descending on Crimea at the weekend.
In a coy address on Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky did not explicitly acknowledge the drone strikes on Moscow, but did say that "gradually, the war is returning to the territory of Russia."
"This is an inevitable, natural and absolutely fair process," he said.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to the head of Zelensky's office, said on Tuesday that Russia was "rapidly getting used to a full-fledged war."
"More unidentified drones, more collapse, more civil conflicts," he wrote in a post to X, the social media platform formerly called Twitter.
Correction 8/2/2024 6:02 a.m. EDT: This article was updated to clarify that the drone attacks happened on Tuesday and Sunday.
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Newsweek is committed to challenging conventional wisdom and finding connections in the search for common ground.
About the writer
Ellie Cook is a Newsweek security and defense reporter based in London, U.K. Her work focuses largely on the Russia-Ukraine ... Read more
