Ukraine launched at least 17 drones targeting Moscow early on Sunday, forcing the temporary closure of two of the capital’s airports, Russian officials said.

Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said the 12 drones were destroyed in the Ramenskoye and Kolomensky districts of the Moscow region, as well as in Domodedovo city, southwest of Moscow.

“According to preliminary information, there is no damage or casualties at the site of the fall of the debris,” Sobyanin said on the Telegram messaging app. “Emergency services are on the sites.”

The Ramenskoye district, some 45 km (30 miles) southeast of the Kremlin, was last targeted in September Ukraine’s biggest attack on the Russian capital, when Russian air defence units destroyed 20 drones.

Rosaviatsia, Russia’s federal air transport agency, said on Telegram that “to ensure the safety of civil aircraft flights, temporary restrictions have been introduced on the operation of the Domodedovo and Zhukovo airports,” starting at 0530 GMT.

It did not say how long the restrictions would be in force.

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A view of a damaged bridge over the Seym river in the Glushkovo district, following a Ukrainian strike in the Kursk region, Russia, in this still image taken from a social media video released on August 16, 2024.
| Photo Credit: Reuters

Russia’s Foreign Ministry said Ukraine had used Western rockets, likely U.S.-made HIMARS, to destroy a bridge over the Seym river in the Kursk region, killing volunteers trying to evacuate civilians.

“For the first time, the Kursk region was hit by Western-made rocket launchers, probably American HIMARS,” Maria Zakharova, spokeswoman for the Russian Foreign Ministry, said late on Friday (August 16, 2024) on the Telegram messaging app.

“As a result of the attack on the bridge over the Seym River in the Glushkovo district, it was completely destroyed, and volunteers who were assisting the evacuated civilian population were killed.”

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Ukrainian army chief Oleksandr Syrskyi said on Friday that Kyiv’s forces were advancing between 1 and 3 km in some areas in the Kursk region, 11 days since beginning an incursion into Russia.

Kyiv has claimed to have taken control of 82 settlements over an area of 1,150 sq. km. in the region since Aug. 6.

Reuters could not independently verify either side’s battlefield accounts.

Russia has accused the West of supporting and encouraging Ukraine’s first ground offensive on Russian territory and said Kyiv’s “terrorist invasion” would not change the course of the war.

The U.S., which has said it cannot allow Russian President Vladimir Putin to win the war he launched in February 2022, so far deems the surprise incursion a protective move that justifies the use of U.S. weaponry, officials in Washington said.

Russia kept up its assault on Ukraine Saturday even as Ukrainian forces pushed into Russia’s Kursk border region.

A Russian missile sparked a blaze in the city of Sumy that injured two people and also damaged cars and nearby buildings, said Ukraine’s State Emergency Service. It said that the hit had involved an Iskander-K cruise missile and an aerial bomb.

Ukraine’s air force also said it had shot down 14 Russian drones overnight, including over the Kyiv region.

Meanwhile, fighting continued in Russia’s Kursk region, where Ukrainian troops have been deployed since Aug. 6 in a bid to divert the Kremlin’s military focus away from the front line in Ukraine.

Kyiv:

Ukraine launched a wave of drones at Russia in the early hours of Saturday, setting a fuel depot ablaze, officials said, as both sides accused each other of deadly attacks on civilians.

The governor of Russia’s Belgorod region said cross-border Ukrainian attacks left at least three people dead, while a Russian strike killed two in Ukraine’s northeast.

A source in Ukraine’s defence sector told AFP Kyiv targeted eight Russian regions in the “large-scale” drone attack, which was aimed at “energy infrastructure that feeds Russia’s military-industrial complex”.

“At least three electrical substations and a fuel storage base were hit and caught fire,” the source said, calling it a “joint operation” of Ukraine’s SBU security service, army, and military intelligence.

Russia’s defence ministry said it had intercepted 50 Ukrainian drones overnight, some of them hundreds of kilometres from the border, including near the capital Moscow.

Video on social media purportedly showed a large blaze burning at a fuel depot in Russia’s western Smolensk region, an attack that the governor confirmed was caused by drones.

“Air defence forces shot the aerial vehicles down. However, as a result of falling debris, a tank with fuel and lubricants caught fire,” Governor Vasily Anokhin said.

Kyiv has ramped up strikes on Russian oil and gas facilities in recent months, part of what it calls “fair” retaliation on infrastructure used to fuel Russia’s war.

Ukrainian drones left two people in Russia’s Belgorod border region dead, its governor said early Saturday, while shelling later in the day killed a pregnant woman.

A residential building and a barn in the village of Poroz, less than two kilometres (one mile) from the frontier, were “completely burned down”, governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said. Another building was severely damaged.

“As a result of the release of two explosive devices, a private residential building caught fire. Tragically, two civilians died — a woman who was recovering from a fractured femur, and a man who was caring for her,” Gladkov wrote on Telegram.

He later said Ukraine shelled the village of Novaya Tavolzhanka, killing a pregnant woman and her unborn child.

“Doctors did everything possible to save both mother and child. But to the great grief, the woman and the unborn baby died from their wounds,” he said.

Ukraine meanwhile said Russia launched strikes at residential buildings in the northeastern city of Vovchansk, killing two people and injuring two others.

“A direct hit was recorded on a nine-storey residential building. A woman and a man were injured. Both victims are 61 years old. At other addresses, two men aged 50 and 84 died as a result of shelling in the city,” regional prosecutors said.

The region’s governor, Oleg Sinegubov, shared a photo showing a pile of rubble next to the collapsed section of a multi-storey residential block.

Russia fired at least seven missiles at Ukraine overnight, two of which were shot down by air defences, Ukraine’s air force said.

Ukraine has in recent months pleaded for more air defences from its Western allies as it struggles to fend off a surge in deadly attacks on civilian infrastructure.

The strike on its northeast comes a day after President Volodymyr Zelensky urged NATO to quickly deliver more aid to help his struggling forces, which have ceded ground to Russia in recent months.

“This year, we can’t wait for decisions to be made,” he told NATO defence ministers. 

“We need seven more Patriots or similar air defence systems — and it’s a minimum number. They can save many lives and really change the situation,” Zelensky said.

(Except for the headline, this story has not been edited by NDTV staff and is published from a syndicated feed.)