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The brazen drone attack targeting Moscow early on Tuesday, which Russia has blamed on Kyiv, provides the clearest evidence yet that the seat of Russian power is no longer sheltered from the war in Ukraine.
Fifteen months into the war in Ukraine, it appears Moscow is now in the firing line.
Russia’s defence ministry accused Ukraine of carrying out a “terrorist attack” on its capital city on Tuesday morning; while also claiming that its air defences had foiled the attack by drones.
Five of the eight unmanned vehicles that took part in the raid were shot down, the ministry said, while three others were jammed and forced to veer off course. Other sources, however, put the number of drones at many times more, adding that not all had been intercepted.
Some local media and bloggers “reported that between 30 and 40 drones had targeted the capital”, said Huseyn Aliyev, a specialist in Russian and Ukrainian security at the University of Glasgow.
The contrasting reports make it difficult to assess the exact scale of the attack, but Russian hawks – including the head of the Wagner paramilitary group – were quick to blame the military brass for failing to protect the capital.
Moscow within reach
Footage widely shared on social media showed smoke billowing over Moscow and what appeared to be several damaged buildings, although the images could not be independently verified.
Alexander Khinshtein, a member of the State Duma, the lower house of Russia’s parliament, posted a list of five sites where drones had been shot down in and around the Russian capital.
“They appear to have targeted the southwest of Moscow, where the capital’s most affluent districts are located,” said Gustav Gressel, a military expert at the Berlin-based European Council on Foreign Relations.
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