The ‘attempted terrorist attack’ on Russia’s capital wounded one person and damaged facade of two office buildings.
Drones attacked Moscow elite office and residential skyscraper district early Sunday causing damage to at least two buildings, officials say.
Screams were heard as explosions ripped apart the several floors of a major building.
The suspected Ukrainian attack inflicted the kind of terror on Moscow that Vladimir Putin’s armed forces have imposed on Kyiv and other Ukrainians cities during the war.
The first of two drones penetrating the Russian capital’s much-vaunted air defences struck at 3:20am.
It hit the 50-storey IQ Quarter Tower, part of a business district called Moscow City that also includes elite residential apartments and penthouses.
A second drone struck at the business centre Oko-2 at 4:10am. Footage showed the impact of one of the drones.
The Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said the facades of two buildings were ‘slightly damaged’ but the strikes appeared more serious.
The Russian defence ministry claimed the drones striking the skyscrapers had lost control after being jammed by electronic warfare technology. There was no confirmation that this was accurate.
There was a report of two casualties with injuries – a security guard and a 21 -year old woman – but multiple ambulances were at the scene.
The attack reached the heart of Moscow, close to the White House headquarters of the Russian government.
One of the buildings struck by the drones houses the Ministry of Economic Development and the Ministry of Industry and Trade.
The attacks came the same day as Russia’s Navy Day parade, which went ahead in St Petersburg and Kronstadt as Putin was joined by leaders of a number of African nations marking a Russia-Africa summit.
One video highlights the voices of two women seeing an incoming drone.
Another video has two more women on Presnenskaya Embankment, one saying: ‘I told you…’ One screams: ‘Ah! Mamochka! [Mummy…] ‘Right next to us a drone hit a building. ‘I filmed it.’
Guests at a Novotel hotel at Moscow City were panicked by the attack. Another shows a woman in bed as the drone attack is seen from her high-rise window.
Flights were temporarily halted at major Moscow international airport Vnukovo, used by Putin and members of the Russian government, due to the drone strikes.
It was portrayed as an ‘attempted terrorist attack by the Kyiv regime’. There was no immediate comment from the Ukrainians.
Moscow routinely downplays attacks by Ukraine in an attempt not to alarm people.
A source said: ‘The glazing was shattered as a result of the blast at the level of fifth and sixth floors of the 50-story building on Presnenskaya embankment.’ TASS reported: ‘There are no casualties and no fire has started.
‘Another nine Ukrainian drones were suppressed by electronic warfare and crashed in the waters of the Black Sea and Cape Tarkhankut without reaching their target. There were no casualties or damage as a result of the foiled terrorist attack.’
