Moscow drone strike brings war home
Attack inside Russia came during sustained aerial assault on Ukraine’s capital
A barrage of attack drones were downed over Moscow on Tuesday, the first time civilian areas of the Russian capital have been touched directly by the Ukrainian conflict and a signal that a distant war may soon begin to feel somewhat less so for ordinary Russians.
The physical damage was minimal, limited to shattered apartment windows and some minor injuries in an upscale neighborhood, but the psychological impact may prove far bigger for a citizenry that to date has been able to go about daily life with little thought for the bloodshed taking place over the border.
“If the goal was to stress the population, then the very fact that drones have appeared in the skies over Moscow has contributed to that,” wrote one pro-war Russian blogger, Mikhail Zvinchuk, who posts under the name Rybar.
The drones, numbering at least eight, came as Russia has been engaged in a particularly sustained aerial assault on Ukraine’s own capital, Kyiv. And while President Vladimir Putin blamed Ukraine for what he branded “terrorist activity,” no one was killed in Moscow on Tuesday. The same could not be said for Kyiv, where one person died in the Russian attacks.
Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, said
Ukraine had not been “directly involved” in the attack but was “happy” to watch the events taking place across the border. A spokesperson for its air force, which typically maintains a policy of strategic ambiguity over attacks on Russian soil, declined to comment.
Russian officials and Ukrainian allies alike appeared to be choosing their words carefully in responding to the attack.
While the United States has flooded Ukraine with military equipment since
the war began in February 2022, U.S. officials have made clear they do not want it used to hit Russian territory, lest the conflict escalate.
On Tuesday, they appeared to hedge that position a bit.
The State Department and the National Security Council both issued statements saying the United States does not support strikes inside Russia “as a general matter,” but noting that Tuesday marked the 17th time this month Russia had struck Kyiv.
Britain, another Ukrainian ally, went further.
Its foreign minister, James Cleverly, said Ukraine had “the right to project force beyond its borders” to undermine Russian attacks, and military targets beyond a nation’s borders are “internationally recognized as being legitimate as part of a nation’s self-defense.” Cleverly said he did not have details about the drone attacks and was speaking more generally.
In Moscow, where the drone incursion raised questions about Russian air defenses, Kremlin officials sought to dismiss the seriousness of the attack, even while suggesting it would lead to changes.
“It’s clear what needs to be done to increase the density of the capital’s air defense systems,” Putin said. “And we will do just that.”
Still, a ruling party lawmaker, Andrei Gurulev, said people in the city center of Moscow were more likely to be hit by an electric scooter than by a drone. “We didn’t do too badly today,” he told state news media.
The Russian Defense Ministry said five of the drones had been shot down, and three had their signals jammed electronically.
When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine last year, after seizing territory there in 2014, it was expected to win quickly and decisively. Instead, the Ukrainian military made Russia fight for every inch.
Now, more than a year after Russian tanks rolled into Ukraine, a series of embarrassing attacks on Russian soil have shown that even at home the Russians can be vulnerable.