“I somehow thought (the war) was far away”
At least eight drones hit Moscow on Tuesday, leaving only minor damage to two residential buildings and minor injuries but also uneasiness in Russia.
The Guardian reports:
There has been no suggestion that US-made drones or munitions were used in the attacks on Moscow. There has been speculation that at least one of the drones involved was a UJ-22 produced by a Ukrainian company.
Another Guardian report on the attacks:
According to Russian authorities and media, eight drones were involved in the attack, with five shot down or otherwise disabled with jamming technology. Russian media close to the security services said the number was many times higher, with more than 30 drones participating in the attack.
[…]
The attacks seem designed to bring the war home to Russia’s capital, underlying both the fact that Ukraine is capable of skirting Russian air defences repeatedly and that it has the capacity to strike deep inside Russia.
Axios reports:
Mykhailo Podolyak, a top adviser to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelesnky, claimed Ukraine was not “directly involved” but was “watching with pleasure.”
- Two people were injured, three apartment buildings were damaged, and a number of apartment blocks were evacuated, Moscow’s mayor said.
- Russian President Vladimir Putin — who only rarely responds publicly to events related to the war — accused Ukraine of “terrorist activity,” and said Russia’s air defenses had worked relatively well but would be strengthened.
- Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov claimed Ukraine launched the attack in response to “very effective strikes on a command center” in Ukraine.
- Russian officials have tried to downplay the attacks, some of which seemed to target an upscale neighborhood. Some nationalist commentators have expressed concern that the drones were able to reach Moscow unimpeded.
Podolyak posted to WhatsApp that “Ukraine is not directly connected to the nighttime drone attack in Moscow. There is no strategic sense in this.”
The White House responded that the U.S. does not support attacks inside Russia but has not accused Ukraine of the attacks.
AFP adds:
Tatiana Kalinina, a pensioner who lives near one of the affected buildings in a leafy corner of Moscow, said the attack was “completely unexpected” for her and a “bad surprise.”
“I somehow thought (the conflict) was far away, that it would not affect us,” she told AFP, standing in the bright green grass outside a cordoned off building.
“And then, suddenly, it came to us.”
Meanwhile, in Ukraine, per the Washington Post:
On Tuesday, Russia attacked Ukraine with 31 drones over five hours, almost all of them directed at Kyiv, Ukrainian air defense forces wrote on Telegram.
Falling debris from an intercepted drone killed a 33-year-old woman and injured at least 13 people in the city and surrounding region, said Ivan Vyhivskyi, acting head of Ukraine’s national police.
Dozens of residents reported damage to homes, offices, shops, garages and vehicles.
Ukrainian military officials said Russia was using drones to pinpoint the location of Ukraine’s air defense systems.
“They are trying … to draw themselves a map of the entire operation,” Natalia Humeniuk, a spokeswoman for Ukraine’s southern command, told Ukraine’s Channel 5 on Tuesday.
At The Bulwark, Brynn Tannehill considers what the delivery of F-16s to Ukraine will and won’t do for the Ukrainians. They won’t likely take to the air before the end of the year and are unlikely to “change the balance on the battlefield any time soon.”
The aging F-16s should, however, “be useful for defending Ukraine against Russian cruise missiles (e.g. Kh-101 and Kh-555) and Iranian-made Shahed-131/136 drones. Ukraine’s stockpiles of Soviet-era S-300 surface-to-air missiles has been dwindling, and there are a limited number of Patriot missiles available. The F-16’s air-to-air capability will help those ground-based defenses last longer.”
This war is a slog. For Putin it suggests his dreams of a rebuilt Russian empire are not going anywhere soon.