Air defenses shot down 10 drones approaching Moscow in what Mayor Sergei Sobyanin called one of the largest attacks on the Russian capital since the beginning of the war on Ukraine, as Kyiv’s forces continued their incursion into Russia’s Kursk region.
“Our force should be felt in various corners of Russia,” Andriy Yermak, the chief of staff to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said Wednesday on Telegram, without specifically referring to the drone assault. “So it will be.”
Sobyanin said Moscow’s “layered defense” had succeeded in intercepting all the drones, and there were no reports of damage or casualties. In total, 45 drones were shot down overnight in various regions of Russia, the Defense Ministry said in a statement.
Moscow was regularly the target of Ukrainian drone attacks last summer. Strikes against Russia’s largest city with the unmanned aerial vehicles have been far less frequent this year as Ukraine has focused on hitting military airfields and energy sector installations in border regions.
Ukraine’s military caught Russia off guard with its intervention into the Kursk region that’s now in its third week, the first foreign military offensive inside Russian territory since World War II. Zelenskyy said Monday that his forces control more than 1,250 square kilometers (483 square miles) of Russian territory and are continuing to expand operations in the region. The claims couldn’t be independently verified.
Ukraine has also stepped up targeting of military sites in the occupied Crimea peninsula in recent months, forcing Russia’s Black Sea fleet to retreat from the area to protect its vessels.
Ukrainian air defenses downed 50 out of 69 Shahed drones, the highest number reported so far this month, as well as one missile out of three fired by Russia overnight, the country’s Air Force Command said on Telegram.
Zelenskyy has urged U.S. and European allies to lift restrictions on the use of long-range weapons against Russia, saying his military’s cross-border operation had exposed as “illusory” Kremlin threats of retaliation.
He said Ukraine’s goal in the operation is to establish a buffer zone to protect communities in its northern border areas from Russian attack. Russia’s military has repeatedly launched missiles, glide bombs and drones from the Kursk and neighboring Belgorod regions to strike Ukrainian cities close to their border.
Russia has continued attacks elsewhere along the front line, advancing in the eastern Donetsk region toward the city of Pokrovsk, an important logistics hub for Ukrainian forces. Local authorities have ordered an evacuation of civilians.
If Ukraine is able to hold on to territory in Kursk, that could force Moscow to redeploy troops from the eastern frontline to help dislodge Kyiv’s forces from Russia, said Jim Townsend, a former top Pentagon official during President Barack Obama’s administration.
“Maybe it will take pressure off the east and they’ll be able to retake some of the settlements they’ve lost,” said Townsend, a senior fellow at the Washington-based Center for a New American Security.
At the same time, Ukraine should be careful not to fall into the trap of “overstretch,” he said. Russia could try to lure Ukrainian troops deeper into its territory and “then use artillery and air power to smash them to pieces.”
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