Russian authorities are blaming Ukraine for Monday morning drone attacks on Moscow and Crimea.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Telegram there were no casualties in the city as a result of the attack, adding there were strikes on two nonresidential buildings but “no serious destruction” reported.
Russian media reported the drones struck about 600 feet from the Russian Defense Ministry headquarters in Moscow, but it was not clear whether the building was the target of the attack.
Russian news media TASS reported Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said the attack was an act of “international terrorism.” The outlet also reported the Russian Defense Ministry said Kyiv’s “attempt to conduct a terrorist attack on facilities in Moscow, using two unmanned aerial vehicles, was thwarted.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Monday that the “intensity of attempts to attack our regions with drones has grown.”
“So measures are being taken, a very intense daily 24-hour work is underway,” Peskov said, but he did not offer details on what measures were being taken.
Russian authorities said a separate drone attack in northern Crimea struck an ammunition depot and disrupted highway and railway traffic. The Moscow-appointed head of Crimea, Sergei Aksyonov, claimed 11 attacking drones were brought down by the military, adding that residents were asked to evacuate who were in the three-mile radius of the drone attack.
Ukrainian authorities did not appear to immediately take responsibility for the attacks, but Ukraine’s digital transformation minister Mykhailo Fedorov posted on Telegram that they signaled Russia was “less and less able to protect the skies of the invaders,” adding that “there will be more of it.”
The Associated Press contributed.
–Updated at 11:59 a.m.