Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has warned that war is returning to Russia after drone attacks on the capital Moscow.
Zelensky said the attack on Russian soil was a “necessary, natural and completely rational” step out of the conflict between the two countries.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said three drones were launched on Sunday, two of which crashed into offices.
Vnukovo Airport, southwest of Moscow, was also temporarily closed.
The drone attack in the early Sunday morning was Russia’s latest attack on Ukraine. Even in a video speech he gave on Sunday in Ivano-Frankivsk in western Ukraine, Zelensky said that Ukraine is getting stronger. He said: “Today is the 522nd day of the ‘special military operation’, which the Russian government thought would last for weeks.
“Slowly, the war is returning to the territory of Russia – to the territories where we have a say and to the military bases, and this is an inevitable, natural and rational action”.
This statement of his goes beyond Ukraine’s practice of denying involvement in internal aggression against Russia.
It may not be possible to admit that he carried out the attack, but President Zelensky is clearly confident enough to put pressure, not only on the office of the Russian president, the Kremlin.
Such drone strikes are also an opportunity to speak to the Russian public, many of whom seem to believe that Russia’s attack on Ukraine is reasonable and justified.
If they connect the explosions closer to home with what is happening in Ukraine, based on Zelensky’s interpretation, it will make it difficult for Russian President Vladimir Putin to convince them that his attack is justified, and he is looking to expand it.
On Sunday, former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev said that if Russia were to use nuclear weapons in the current attack on Ukraine, it would have achieved its goal.
Medvedev, the deputy head of Russia’s – Putin-led Security Council – said on social media that there would be “no other option” if Ukraine took what he called “our territory”.
Authorities said no one was injured in the drone strike, and Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said the interior (exterior) of two office buildings was partially damaged.
Photos taken at the scene show several broken windows in the corner of the building, with debris strewn across the building’s basement.
One of the witnesses, a woman who only gave her first name as Liya, told Reuters that she could see flames and smoke.
He said: “We heard it crash and it was like an earthquake, everyone jumped.
“So there was a lot of smoke and you couldn’t see anything. You were up there, you could see the fire.”
Flights were temporarily suspended at Vnukovo Airport, southwest of the city, and flights to the airport were asked to divert to other airports.
In a statement, Russia’s defense ministry said an “attempted terrorist attack” had been “defused”.
The city of Moscow, located about 500 kilometers from the border with Ukraine, has been the most heavily bombed since Russia launched an all-out attack on Ukraine in February (2) 2022.
But in recent months Russia has accused Ukraine of carrying out a series of drone attacks on its territory, including several on its capital.
The most serious is what happened in the month of May (5) this year, when Russia said that Ukraine used two drones to attack the Kremlin – in the center of Moscow. Ukraine has denied launching an attack on the Kremlin or targeting President Vladimir Putin.
Russia’s Defense Ministry says Ukraine has also carried out a drone attack in the dead of night on the Crimean Peninsula – which Russia annexed in 2014. Authorities say 16 drones were shot down and nine others were destroyed, according to the state-run TASS news agency. of Russia.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian authorities say that a Russian missile attack on the city of Sumy, in the north-east of the country, killed one person and wounded five others.
The building was destroyed in the attack that took place around 2:00 p.m. local time, as reported by the Suspilne media of Ukraine.
Authorities also said two people were killed in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia on Saturday.
