Russia accuses Kiev of a “terrorist act” after five drones were shot down 40 miles from Moscow

Russia said on Tuesday it had shot down five Ukrainian drones in the Moscow region, calling it a “terrorist act” that disrupted the operation of an international airport.

Four of the drones were shot down by Moscow air defenses near Vnukovo airport, while a fifth got stuck and crashed in the Odintsovo district of the Moscow region, the Russian Defense Ministry said. He added that no one was injured.

Reports said the only drone was targeted at a military base that is about 25 miles from the airport sometimes used by Vladimir Putin.

Russia blamed Ukraine, which has not commented on the attacks believed to have used kamikaze drones, which damage and destroy targets by flying an explosive charge directly into them.

“An attempt by the Kiev regime to attack an area where civilian infrastructure is located, including an airport receiving international flights, is a new terrorist act,” Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said on Telegram.

The Russian military said it had shot down all five drones.

Four drones were destroyed by air defense systems, while a fifth was neutralized by “electronic means” before crashing, it said.

Emergency services quoted by the RIA Novosti news agency said one of the drones was neutralized in Kubinka, some 25 miles from Vnukovo airport.

The operation of the airport was briefly interrupted by the attack.

Several flights were redirected to other airports and Russia’s air transport agency said traffic at Vnukovo resumed at 0500 GMT.

Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency said other airports in Moscow and the Moscow region were operating normally.

The state agency RIA Novosti also reported that two drones had been shot down near the New Moscow town of Valuevo, citing emergency services. The drones had come down in an “open field” and no casualties had been reported, he said.

However, an administrative building was reportedly damaged at the key Kubinka military airbase, some 48 miles southwest of the Kremlin.

Some reports say that the damage was caused after it was shot down by air defenses.

A second wave of drones led Vnukovo airport to divert at least ten incoming domestic and international flights.

The airport is regularly used by government officials, including Putin and VIPs, and appears to have been closed to arrivals as a precaution due to the drone explosion nearby. The Vnukovo airport emergency was declared over at 8 am local time.

The videos showed explosions caused by the alleged Ukrainian drones near Moscow.

The drones are not believed to have hit the territory of the Vnukovo airport.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin called it “another attempted attack with Ukrainian drones.”

“Today there was another attack attempt by Ukrainian drones in New Moscow and the Moscow region,” he said Tuesday.

“So far, the attacks have been repelled by the air defense forces and all detected UAVs have been eliminated. For security reasons, some flights have been temporarily diverted from Vnukovo airport.’

He said “there were no casualties” and that “emergency services are working on the scene.”

There was no immediate comment from kyiv. Ukraine almost never publicly claims responsibility for attacks inside Russia or on Russian-controlled territory in Ukraine.

Drone strikes have hit Russian cities during Moscow’s offensive in Ukraine, but have intensified in recent months.

Moscow and its environs, which are about 500 kilometers from the border with Ukraine, have so far rarely been attacked.

In early May, two drones were shot down over the Kremlin, and later that month drones attacked Moscow skyscrapers. And in late May, a drone strike closed in on Putin’s palatial official residence, Novo-Ogaryovo, near Moscow.

The Russians described the double drone strike that hit the Kremlin as an attempt to assassinate Vladimir Putin.

kyiv said early Tuesday that Russia had launched 22 Iranian ‘Shahed’ attack drones in the Sumy, Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions.

His forces had ‘destroyed’ 16 of the drones, he said.

Separately on Tuesday, a suspected Ukrainian Valkyrja attack drone was shot down in the Belgorod border region, as was a Leleka-100 reconnaissance drone.

Reports said there were no casualties in Kubinka despite structural damage to an administrative building at the airbase that houses attack planes and an air force display team.

The Russian Federal Air Transport Agency said: “For technical reasons, regardless of the airport, restrictions have been introduced in Vnukovo on the acceptance and release of aircraft from 05:10.

‘Restrictions on the acceptance and release of aircraft at Vnukovo airport have been extended until 08:00 in the morning.

‘Other airports in Moscow and the Moscow region are operating normally.

“All airport services and air traffic controllers of air traffic services are operating normally.”

Among the planes diverted to Sheremetyevo airport in Moscow were flights from Sharm El Sheikh and Dubai.

One of the stuck drones crashed into a garage and exploded in the village of Krivosheino, starting a huge fire.

Two drones were reported flying towards Moscow over the Kaluga region.

Eyewitnesses reported aircraft-type drones at an altitude of about 700 feet.

One was black in color and had a wingspan of about 10 feet. The other was greyish and smaller.

Other drones were said to be helicopter-type.

The reports said the drone strikes occurred between 4 a.m. and 6:30 a.m. local time.

Spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said: “The Kiev regime’s attempt to attack an area where civilian infrastructure is located, including the airport, which by the way also receives foreign flights, is another act of terrorism.

‘Taking into account that [Volodymyr] Zelensky is committing these attacks with weapons supplied by the West or purchased with Western funds, this is international terrorism.

“The world community must realize that the United States, Great Britain and France, permanent members of the UN Security Council, are financing a terrorist regime.”