Ukraine launches drones into Moscow after the Crimea airstrike

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Ukraine war

by Jacob Janus

August 26, 2023 | 2:35 p.m

Ukraine launched drone attacks on Moscow and the Belgorod border region, prompting the temporary closure of at least four Russian airports on Saturday.

The attacks came a day after Ukraine carried out an air strike on a military base in Crimea.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said the air defense system shot down a drone over the Istra region, about 30 miles west of the Kremlin, early Saturday.

Russia announced that it had intercepted two drones later Saturday over the Belgorod region, as Ukraine stepped up its cross-border attacks.

Moscow said six people were wounded in shelling, also on a border town.

The attacks temporarily halted flights at three major airports serving the capital, as well as a nearby airport in Belgorod.

The attempted attacks followed one of the largest coordinated airstrikes in Ukraine since the Russian invasion in February 2022.

Ukraine’s military intelligence agency GUR confirmed that drones struck a Russian military base in Crimea on Friday, with residents reporting deaths and explosions.

However, Russia confirmed that its air defense systems shot down all 42 drones that attacked Crimea before they hit their targets.

Meanwhile, the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Mark Milley, said that the Ukrainian counterattack broke through the Russian front line of defense and liberated part of the territory occupied by Russia.

Milley on Friday described progress in the counter-attack as “bloody, long and slow”. Kingdom interview.

“Precisely, regarding the axis of advance that they are attacking now, they have attacked through the first main defensive belt,” Miele said. “This defensive line, which the Russians spent months preparing, has minefields, it has dragon’s teeth, it has tank trenches. It’s a very complex set of defensive preparations that the Ukrainians are fighting with.”

The counterattack has put pressure on Russian forces in Bakhmut — the site of some of the war’s fiercest fighting — and southern Ukraine, where they are gradually gaining ground, according to an intelligence update. It was published by the British Ministry of Defense on Saturday.

Russia continued to launch small-scale attacks in the northeast, where it also managed to make some progress, according to the agency.

On Saturday, two people were killed when Russian shelling hit a cafe in the village of Podoli in the eastern Kharkiv region.

with mail wires.