BRENDAN COLE
Russia said it had suppressed a drone attack on Moscow carried out by Ukraine which it has accused of "international terrorism."
Russian media reported that two unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) carrying explosives struck buildings in the center of the capital around 4 a.m. on Monday, causing damage and blowing out windows.
The Russian news outlet 112 reported that the roof of a two-story building on Komsomolsky Prospect had been destroyed and windows were broken in a building opposite.
Investigative journalist Christo Grozev tweeted that it was significant that the strike took place just across from the headquarters of the cyber operations hubs of the foreign military intelligence agency, the GRU, as well as other military units.
Glass from the 17th and 18th floors of a business center on Likhachev Avenue was damaged in the other strike, Tass news agency reported.
One video on social media shows a drone buzzing the Moscow skyline while other footage shows the damage caused.
In a statement on Telegram, the Russian defense ministry said that the drone strikes were "an attempt by the Kyiv regime to carry out a terrorist attack" but that the UAVs had been thwarted.
Moscow city mayor Sergei Sobyanin said no one was injured. Russian Foreign Ministry spokesperson Maria Zakharova told state broadcaster RTVI that the incident was "an act of international terrorism."
Ukrainian officials are often coy about drone strikes in Russia, hinting they are behind them without directly admitting responsibility. A previous drone attack on Moscow targeted the Kremlin on May 3 before Russia celebrated Victory Day.
Kyiv has not commented on the latest incidents and Newsweek has contacted the Ukrainian defense ministry for comment.
It comes as the Russian-appointed head of Crimea, Sergey Aksyonov, said on Monday that Ukrainian drones had caused an explosion at an ammunition depot in the occupied peninsula's Dzhankoi region.
Aksyonov said Russian air defense shot down 11 drones and that locals in villages within three miles of the explosion have been evacuated.
'Retaliation'
The strikes follow a warning from Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky that there would be "retaliation" for a Russian missile attack on the Black Sea port of Odesa which killed two people and badly damaged a UNESCO-listed Orthodox cathedral.
Clergymen rescued icons from rubble inside the cathedral which was demolished under Soviet leader Joseph Stalin in 1936 and rebuilt in the 1990s after the collapse of the Soviet Union.
Kyiv said the destruction of the Orthodox Savior and Transfiguration Cathedral under UNESCO protection in the city center was a "war crime that will never be forgotten and forgiven."
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