Ukraine launches second barrage of drone strikes on Moscow this week

Multiple Ukrainian drones were used to attack Moscow overnight on Thursday, as Kyiv once again made a point of “bringing the war home” to Russians, just hours after Vladimir Putin appeared ambivalent about a proposed 30-day ceasefire deal being pushed by the Trump administration. 

Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said on Friday that Russian air defences had intercepted four Ukrainian drones during the night, and that the emergency services were checking for damage caused by falling drone debris, but that no casualties had been reported.

A multi-storey residential complex in a prestigious district of western Moscow was damaged in the attack, according to pro-government Telegram channel Mash, while Telegram channel Baza reported that the wreckage of another downed drone had landed on an apartment building elsewhere in the city.

Moscow region Governor Andrey Vorobyov said that air defences had shot down two drones over the city of Balashikha, east of Moscow, while the wreckage of a third drone landed on a high-rise building under construction in a suburb just beyond Moscow’s city limits.

Russia’s federal aviation authority, Rosaviatsia, briefly placed restrictions on flights in and out of Moscow’s Vnukovo airport as well as the airport in Kaluga, 200km southwest of Moscow.

Ukraine carried out its largest-scale drone attack to date on Russia in the early hours of Tuesday, striking residential buildings in Moscow and the surrounding region, killing three people and injuring a further 17.