After the drone attack that targeted Moscow on Tuesday, May 30, the Kremlin accuses Ukraine of “terrorist attack”, which the Kiev regime denies. The Russian capital is affected for the second time since the beginning of the conflict.
[Updated May 30, 2023 at 12:01 p.m.] Accused of being the author of a “terrorist attack” against Moscow, the Kiev regime has denied being behind the drone attacks targeting the Russian capital on Tuesday May 30. “We have nothing to do with this,” said Mykhailo Podolyak, a close adviser to the Ukrainian president. The politician, however, indicated that Ukraine was “watching with pleasure and anticipating an increasing number of attacks.” However, Moscow does not budge: “The Kiev regime is behind the drone attack on Moscow,” assured Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, taking up the speech of the Russian Ministry of Defense.
It is only the second time since the start of the war in Ukraine that the city of Moscow has been targeted. After a first aerial assault by two drones over the Kremlin at the beginning of May, this Tuesday, May 30 “a drone attack caused minor damage to several buildings” in the Russian capital, said Mayor Sergei Sobyanin. “Several drones have been shot down” by Russian anti-aircraft defense Governor Andrei Vorobio said this morning. While according to various Russian sources, including Telegram accounts, between four and twenty drones flew over Russian skies, the Ministry of Defense counted eight unmanned aircraft. The authorities assured that all were destroyed, including five by the Russian anti-aircraft missile system.
These aerial weapons did not cause any fatalities according to Sergei Sobyanin: “So far, no one has been seriously injured. […] Two people have consulted a doctor. No one has needed to be hospitalized, the necessary assistance was provided on the spot”.
The drone attack on Moscow resulted in no fatalities, but “all emergency services in the city are on scene” as a safety precaution and two buildings in the south of the city, near the area where a drone hit was shot was evacuated. All the flying devices having been destroyed, it seems that the debris caused the few material damage observed, in particular broken windows on the upper floors of the evacuated buildings.
Footage of the drones slicing through the skies above Moscow has been broadcast on the networks showing the devices in flight, their destruction and scant material damage.
According to Moscow, kyiv is behind this attack and if nothing is confirmed yet Ukraine may well have thought of a response after having suffered several drone attacks in recent weeks.
Moscow and its region, located more than 1,000 kilometers from Ukraine, have recently become targets in the Russian-Ukrainian conflict. The May 30 attack is the second after a previous assault also carried out with drones over the Kremlin in early May. Russia believes that the kyiv regime is behind these attacks, but Ukraine has each time denied being the author of the airstrikes. The attacks could, however, be retaliation by kyiv after the salvoes of aerial assaults observed in recent weeks: sixteen drone attacks were recorded in May. This is the hypothesis put forward by Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov: “It is quite clear that we are talking about a response from the Kiev regime to our very effective strikes against one of its command centers”.
The last two attacks date back to Monday, May 29, at night and then during the day according to the authorities. Mayor of Kiev Vitali Klitschko described a “massive attack” from Russia which claimed several victims: “One person died, an old lady was hospitalized, two victims were treated on the spot”. In this latest drone attack, the third in a row in three days, Ukraine says it shot down 29 out of 31 explosive drones.
By becoming the target of air attacks of the same ilk as those it orders on kyiv, the city of Moscow could suffer the first consequences of its possible new military tactic. Russia launched “the biggest drone attack” on Ukraine during the month of May, observed Colonel and consultant for BFMTV Michel Goya, who considers the Ukrainian response “imminent”. This Russian strategy would aim to weaken the stockpiles of Ukrainian ammunition capable of destroying adversary missiles, according to General Jérôme Pellistrandi interviewed by the news channel continuously. For her part, Tetyana Ogarkova, Ukrainian journalist and essayist at Crisis Media Center believes that Moscow’s objective is to “postpone the start of the Ukrainian counter-offensive”.
The use of drones could also reflect the weakening of the Russian arsenal. These latest attacks appear to show the Russians “don’t have many missiles left”, after conducting daily strikes for months according to Michel Goya. And the specialist added, still on BFMTV, that the Russians “lack strike capabilities”.
