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Drones target Moscow, Black Sea patrols

Office block in Russian capital’s main business district hit; Kremlin slams Ukrainian ‘terrorist attack’
AGENCIES
Russia said yesterday it had downed another wave of Ukrainian drones aimed at vessels in the Black Sea and Moscow, as an office block in the capital’s main business district was struck for the second time in a few days.
“Two Ukrainian (unmanned aerial vehicles) were destroyed by air defence systems over the territory of the Odintsovo and Narofominsk districts of Moscow region,” the Russian defence ministry said.
“Another drone was suppressed by electronic warfare and, having lost control, crashed on the territory of the Moscow City,” the capital’s main commercial district, the ministry said. In a separate statement, the Kremlin said it had thwarted the “attempted terrorist attack”.
On Sunday, Russian defences downed drones in that same district, with debris damaging two office towers, blowing out several windows and scattering documents on the pavement below.
“One flew into the same tower in (Moscow) City as last time,” mayor Sergei Sobyanin said yesterday on Telegram. “The facade on the 21st floor was damaged,” and a number of windows were smashed, the mayor said.
He added that emergency services had gone to the scene and that there was no information on any casualties.
“We heard a big explosion, there was no panic,” local resident Arkady Metler, 29, told AFP. “Nobody should be scared... we cannot do anything but stick together,” said Metler.
Other residents were more shaken by the renewed explosion in their neighbourhood.
Shortly after the drone attack, Moscow’s Vnukovo international airport was briefly closed, TASS state news agency reported.
The same airport, to the southwest of Moscow, was briefly closed after Sunday’s attack and earlier this month, a volley of drone attacks disrupted air traffic at Vnukovo.
The Russian defence ministry said yesterday it also foiled a Ukrainian drone attack targeting patrol boats in the Black Sea.
“During the night, Ukrainian armed forces tried without success to attack with three drones the ‘Sergei Kotov’ and ‘Vasily Bykov,’ patrol boats of the Russian fleet,” the defence ministry said in a statement.
The three drones were trained on the ships, navigating in waters 340 kilometres (210 miles) southwest of Sevastopol, the base of Russia’s Black Sea fleet on the annexed Crimea peninsula.
Yesterday’s attacks were the latest in a series of drone assaults -- including on the Kremlin and Russian towns near the border with Ukraine -- that Moscow has blamed on Kyiv.
On Monday, a missile strike on a residential building killed six and wounded dozens in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown of Kryvyi Rig.
The Kremlin called the recent strikes on the capital an “act of desperation” by Ukraine following setbacks on the battlefield.
Ukraine began its long-awaited counteroffensive in June but has made modest advances in the face of stiff resistance from Russian forces on the frontline.
Meanwhile, a doctor was killed and five medical workers were wounded in Russian shelling of a hospital in Ukraine’s southern city of Kherson yesterday, regional officials said.
“Today at 11:10 (0810 GMT), the enemy launched another attack on the peaceful residents of our community,” military administration head Roman Mrochko wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
Photos posted by officials showed the bloodied floor of a balcony and a gaping hole in a roof with debris strewn over the floor.
Regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin said four medical workers had been wounded in addition to a badly wounded nurse whose injuries were reported earlier.
Mrochko said the young doctor had only worked in his job for a few days and that doctors were fighting for the life of the nurse. The surgery department of the facility was also damaged in the shelling, Prokudin said.
Medical charity Médecins Sans Frontières (MSF) said it had been working at the hospital supplying medical equipment and providing mental health consultations to people displaced by the destruction of the Kakhovka Dam.