Russia repels large drone attack on Moscow

MOSCOW

Russian air defenses shot down 11 Ukrainian drones targeting Moscow, "one of the largest" such strikes ever against the capital, officials said on Wednesday.

"Eleven drones were destroyed" over Moscow and its surrounding region, the defense ministry said.

"This is one of the largest ever attempts to attack Moscow with drones," Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said.

Sobyanin said in an earlier post that no damage or casualties had been reported.

Drone attacks on Moscow are rare, with Russia saying in May it had downed a drone outside the capital, forcing restrictions to be imposed at two major airports in the city for under an hour.

Kiev has repeatedly targeted oil and gas facilities in Russia since the conflict began in 2022, some hundreds of kilometres from its borders, in what it has called "fair" retaliation for attacks on its energy infrastructure.

Ukrainian drones attacked an oil storage facility in Russia's southern Rostov region on Sunday, sparking a large fire, the local governor said.

The blaze in the city of Proletarsk was still raging on Tuesday, with around 500 Russian firefighters working to put it out.

Earlier this month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky praised his forces for hitting oil facilities in Russia, saying the attacks would help bring a "just end" to the conflict.

The drone attacks come as Ukraine mounts an unprecedented cross-border assault into Russia's Kursk region, where it claims to control more than 80 settlements.