Ukraine Drone Shot Down In Central Moscow

A Ukrainian drone rammed into a building on Friday, in Central Moscow, after Russian air defences shot it down. The showdown disrupted air traffic at Moscow’s civilian airports, said Russian officials.The crash was described as a “powerful explosion” by a Reuters witness. Reuters images that followed showed workers and emergency workers inspecting a damaged roof of the non-residential building in Moscow’s Expo Center complex, hit by the drone, in the early hours of Friday. 

The Expo centre is a large spread of exhibition pavilions and multi-purpose halls, less than 5 kilometres away from the Kremlin. The Russian Defence Ministry along with the Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin informed that there were no casualties after air defences destroyed the drone which then fell on the building. "At about 4 am Moscow time, the Kyiv regime launched another terrorist attack using an unmanned aerial vehicle on objects located in Moscow and the Moscow region," the Russian defence ministry said.

The Four major airports around the capital- Vnukovo, Domodedovo, Sheremetyevo and Zhukovsky -were also briefly suspended, but had later reopened. Seven flights were redirected to alternative airports said Russia’s air transport agency. 

Air strikes inside Russia have increased multifold since early May, when a drone over the Kremlin was demolished. Later in May, civilian areas of the capital were hit and a Moscow business district was also targeted twice, in three days, earlier this month. 

Although, both Russia and Ukraine denied targeting civilians and civilian infrastructure in the nearly 18-month war. Ukraine typically does not comment on who the perpetrators behind attacks on Russian territory, although officials have publicly expressed satisfaction over them.  As per The New York Times  report in May, United States Intelligence Agencies had established  Ukrainian spies or military intelligence to be behind the  drone strike on the Kremlin.