Ukraine launches largest drone attack yet on Moscow, killing 1, Russia says

A major Ukrainian drone attack on Moscow and eight other Russian regions on Tuesday killed a resident of the capital for the first time, after a drone hit a residential apartment building.

Three of Moscow’s airports, the Zhukovsky, Vnukovo and Domodedovo airports, were temporarily closed as a result of the attacks. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said at least 14 drones were shot down in and around Moscow.

A 46-year-old woman was killed in the strike on an apartment block around 18 miles from the capital. Twelve people were injured, one of them seriously.

More than half of the 102 apartments in the building on Sportivny Proezd in Ramenskoye were damaged, according to the governor of the Moscow region, Andrei Vorobyov. A second apartment building on Vysokovoltnaya Street was also struck, injuring one person. Forty-three people were placed in temporary accommodation centers, he said.

The attack involved at least 144 drones around the country, according to Russia’s Ministry of Defense, the majority of which it said were shot down.

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia must continue the “special military operation,” Russia’s term for its wars against Ukraine, to protect itself from similar attacks in the future. He said the strikes had no military targets.

Peskov added that Ukraine’s government “continues to demonstrate its essence. They are enemies.”

The attack marked the first death in the Moscow region from a Ukrainian drone attack since Russia’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine, as Kyiv seeks to raise the stakes for the Kremlin and drive home the costs of the war to ordinary Russians.

Barred from using Western missiles to strike military targets deep within Russia such as military air bases, Kyiv relies on drones, which are easily intercepted and cause only limited damage, even when they reach their targets.

Ukraine increasingly has targeted Russia oil refineries and fuel depots in recent months, damaging Russia oil refinery production by up to 15 to 20 percent earlier in the year, although repairs have since been carried out and many refineries have resumed operations.

British intelligence last week estimated that Russian forces could be suffering more than 1,000 soldiers killed in action and wounded daily; however, the issue has gotten little traction in Russia where criticisms of the war and the military are criminalized. British intelligence estimated that around 610,000 Russian soldiers have been killed or wounded in the war.

Russian missile strikes on Ukraine’s capital and other cities have killed thousands of civilians and destroyed much of the nation’s energy system and its economic infrastructure. Ukraine said Tuesday that energy facilities in eight regions were attacked just in the past day.

Russian officials have denied targeting civilians in Ukraine in the past, while portraying Ukrainian attacks on Russia as “terrorism.” The Investigative Committee on Tuesday announced that it had opened a terrorism case over the attack.

More than 70 drones were shot down over the Bryansk region in southern Russia, not far from the Kursk region where Ukraine recently staged a major incursion.

On Sept. 1, a Ukrainian drone attack hit the Moscow Oil Refinery in Kapotnya district, setting it on fire.

“Alas, such strikes will be repeated and will increase in number,” pro-Kremlin analyst Sergei Markov wrote on Telegram on Tuesday. He called for moves to strengthen Russia’s air defenses and also to disrupt Ukrainian production of drones.

Echoing the official Kremlin line that the war is Western aggression against Russia, he called for action to hurt Western countries in reprisal for the drone attacks.

“It is necessary for the real subject of aggression against Russia, Western countries, to feel at least some damage,” he posted on Telegram.

Sergei Shoigu, former Russian defense minister and now secretary of the Russian Security Council, on Tuesday confirmed previous reporting by The Washington Post about a proposed deal between Russia and Ukraine to halt strikes on energy infrastructure.

Shoigu said the proposal from Ukraine - which he said President Vladimir Putin had agreed to - involved an agreement not to strike energy facilities, nuclear power plants and the civilian commercial fleet in the Black Sea.

“Our president has made a decision and said, yes, let’s do that,” Shoigu said.

Peskov, the Kremlin spokesman, said there had been “no clear agreements,” adding that Ukraine’s Kursk incursion made any agreement problematic. Putin said recently Russia would not hold talks with Ukraine until it had withdrawn its forces from the Kursk region.

“It’s hard to imagine that any agreements can be reached now amid the situation in the Kursk region,” Peskov said.