The Ministry of Defense in Russia said that electronic jamming equipment was used to down two of the drones, which once disabled crashed into commercial buildings. Another was taken down over Odintsovo.
Russia called this "an attempted terrorist attack," according to the Wall Street Journal. Yutii Ihnat, speaking on behalf of the Ukrainian Air Force, spoke on state television about the attack, claiming it for Ukraine.
Ihnat said that "now the war is affecting those who weren't concerned about it," going on to say that "no matter how the Russian authorities would liek to turn a blind eye on this by saying they intercepted everything... something does hit." The drone strikes caused the evacuation of the commerical complex, damage to the facades of two office buildings, and traffic restrictions, said Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin.
The attacks are part of Ukraine's counteroffensive, an effort to get Russian forces to give up the land their are occupying in the Donetsk region.
Ukraine claimed that their forces had destroyed eight Russian drones overnight. These drones, they states, included drones made by Iran, as well as drones intended for reconnaissance that were downed over Kherson and Dnipropetrovsk. Ukraine has been warding off what the WSJ calls "a persistent barrage of Russian drones," in an effort by Moscow to "deplete its air defenses."
The fighting between Russia and Ukraine has been on Ukrainian soil since Russia invaded in February 2022. The US has been assisting Ukraine with money, weapons, and even help on the ground, in the form of aiding Ukraine in the targeting of HIMARS, a high-tech US-made missile system. The US has said that they would not be sending long-range rockets to Ukraine, specifically because they do not endorse rocket strikes from Ukraine onto Russian soil.
Ukraininan drones have been persistent in their efforts, sending them far into Russian territory. Sixteen people were recently wounded in Taganrog, in Russia's Ukraine-bordering southern Rostov region, when Ukraine launched a drone attack there.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has repeatedly asked the US for long-range rockets. The US has provided cluster bombs most recently, and is manufacturing more ammunition and weapons to aide Ukraine's war effort. US troops serving in Ukraine, stationed in Kyiv, have been granted hazard pay, retroactive to April.
