Moscow and Moscow region targeted by mass drone attack

Drones collided with at least three residential buildings

Residents of Moscow and the Moscow region have reported explosions in the city. Air-defence systems are live as the area was attacked by drones.

What happened? Official statements

Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin has confirmed the drone attack on Moscow. According to him, several buildings were “insignificantly damaged”: “All emergency services in the city are at the site. They are investigating what happened. As of now, nobody has been seriously injured,” the mayor noted.

Later, Sobyanin clarified that no residents of the buildings struck by the drones “were seriously injured”: two people sought medical help, no one needed to be taken to hospital. Parts of two buildings were evacuated.

Moscow region Governor Andrey Vorobyov also confirmed the strike. “This morning, residents of several districts of the Moscow region could hear sounds of explosions — this is our air-defence system working. Several drones were downed as they approached Moscow,” he wrote.

The Russian Defence Ministry said that Ukraine used eight drones to attack Moscow. “All the enemy’s UAVs were intercepted,” the ministry noted. Three drones were jammed using electronic warfare systems, causing them to lose trajectories and deviate from the course. The remaining five drones were downed by a Pantsir-S artillery missile system in the Moscow region. The ministry described the strike as a “terrorist attack”.

Where did drones fall?

TASS reports, citing emergency services, that a drone ploughed into a multi-storey residential building in New Moscow, resulting in an explosion. “Fragments resembling a drone were discovered all around the building,” the new agency was told. Preliminary reports suggest that no one was injured.

According to Mash, the emergency in New Moscow took place at around 4:30 AM, hitting the wall of the technical floor above the flat windows. Splinters, pieces of concrete and roofing fell to the ground. RIA Novosti and Shot specify that it was a 24-storey apartment building on Atlasova Street in New Moscow.

Another drone also crashed into an apartment building at 98 Profsoyuznaya Street in Moscow, Shot, RIA Novosti, Moscow News and Mash reported. The facade and the windows of the building were destroyed. The UAV flew into the flat of a Moscow resident on the 16th floor and broke the window. Preliminary reports say that there were no casualties. Residents of the three entrances to the building are being evacuated.

According to Mash and Shot, an apartment block on Moscow’s Leninsky Avenue was also attacked: drone debris flew into an apartment window of the 92k1 building, around 300 people were temporarily evacuated from there. Traffic on Udaltsova Street from Leninsky Prospekt to Mikhail Pevtsov Street in the south-west of the city was blocked. Mash claims that three explosive devices were attached to the drone, but they did not detonate.

Moreover, explosions could also be heard in Odintsovo, Krasnogorsk, near Novaya Riga, and Barvikha. Baza reports,

more than ten drones were downed in the Moscow region earlier this morning,

most of them are in the Istrinsky, Krasnogorsky, and Odintsovsky districts.

Overall, Baza writes, around 25 drones were involved in the morning attack on Moscow and the Moscow region. Most of them were downed by air-defence forces in the Moscow region. A few drones crashed into trees and power lines because they were travelling at very low altitudes.

Moscow residents share their accounts of the drone attack for Novaya-Europe

Diana Mescheryakova, Moscow’s Konkovo district resident

“I live at 98k9 Profsoyuznaya Street. When I woke up, I saw a crowd of people outside, which is not a usual thing for the district. We have a lot of trees and greenery there. I didn’t understand why they cordoned off there. Then I went outside and saw everything taped off, the police were there and people were watching. I didn’t hear any explosion noises and neither did my boyfriend. I couldn’t see any damaged on the building but I didn’t look very carefully either, and you can’t see much anyway because of the trees.”

Yana, Konkovo district resident (asked to not mention her surname — editorial note)

“We woke up in the morning, and the whole district was cordoned off. We live in the nearest building to the apartment block on Leninsky Avenue that was hit by a drone. We didn’t see much panic, just the street was cordoned off. About four hours passed, traffic resumed. Only the police remained. There weren’t many law enforcement officers, just traffic police, the Russian National guard, and ordinary police. There were also emergency services and tow trucks. We didn’t hear any explosions.”

Anonymous Konkovo resident

“A window was smashed in the building, cordons were around the building, everything was restricted with red and white tape. Inside the cordon, there were about 40-50 people in uniforms and in civilian clothes from various departments: traffic police, the Russian National Guard, police, the Russian Investigative Committee. They say that no one saw or heard anything. Several parts of the building were evacuated. They say that a drone flew into the building, broke a window, dropped to the ground, but I didn’t see any debris in front of the building.”

Daniil, Moscow’s Strogino district resident (asked not to mention his surname — editorial note)

“In the morning, 30 May, at 6:34 AM (I looked at the clock), I heard two muffled explosions, likely remote ones, it seemed to me like they were coming from the south-west. Towards Barvikha and Odintsovo. I couldn’t see anything. Later, there were two more explosions from the same side at 7 AM, I also heard air sirens.”

Official reactions from Russia and Ukraine

Head of Russia’s State Duma (lower house of parliament) defence committee Andrey Kartapolov told RBC that the drone attack was possible “because our country is huge and there will always be a window for a drone to fly in”. “This is mostly an information attack. It is aimed at giving rise to a panic wave so that everyone will start talking about it. Our main goal is to prevent this now. This is an act of intimidation aimed at civilians,” he said.

Head of the State Duma’s IT committee Alexander Khinshteyn opined that the drone attack on Moscow is “a new reality that will have to be realised”.

The drone attack is “the Kyiv regime” response to the strike “on a decision-making centre” in Ukraine, the Kremlin believes. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said that Moscow and Moscow region residents are not in any danger, while it is unclear where the drones were launched from. Vladimir Putin’s working day began “very early”: he received reports of the drone attack from the Defence Ministry and the Moscow authorities, he added.

Head of the Ukrainian president’s office Mykhailo Podolyak told Breakfast Show that Ukraine is “delighted at watching” what is happening in Moscow and the Moscow region and is forecasting that the number of attacks will increase even though Kyiv “of course has nothing to do” with them.

“You know that we are more and more involved in the AI era.”

“Maybe not all drones are ready to attack Ukraine and want to go back to their creators.”

“To ask them these questions: ‘Why are you sending us [to strike] Ukrainian kids, Kyiv, and so on?’,” he said. Podolyak reminded viewers that Kyiv in particular is targeted by attacks every day.

Meduza’s Russian presidential administration sources claim that the drone attack on Moscow was “predictable”, while the damage “is not horrible yet”. “Something does reach targets and it did now,” one of the sources said. According to him, “the effect is more psychological now”.

Russian forces attacked Kyiv three times in the early hours of 30 May, marking the 17th time the Ukrainian capital was targeted in May. Air raid sirens in the city were going off for almost three hours. According to the Ukrainian air force command, 29 drones out of the 31 launched were downed across the country.