Moscow, Crimea suffer drone attacks

Early this morning (Moscow Time) Moscow and Crimea came under separate attacks by aerial drones. All fell short of their targets, though one drone did hit an office building in Moscow.

Drones fly toward Moscow and Crimea

Two drones flew into Moscow, one hitting an office building and gutting several upper floors. The other crashed onto the Komsomolsky Prospekt about 200 yards away from the Defense Ministry headquarters. This crash broke several shop windows and damaged the roof of a private house. Whether the Defense Ministry or some other building in central Moscow was the target, is still not clear. Mayor Sergei Sobyanin reported no casualties from either crash, which occurred in the early morning, apparently before Moscow’s rush hour. Officials reported that both drones fell to Russian electronic countermeasures.

The Ministry of Foreign Affairs also reported that a “helicopter-type drone,” not carrying explosives, fell into a cemetery in the Zelenogradsky district in Moscow.

Separately, 17 drones flew toward the Crimea. Countermeasures caused fourteen to crash, eleven into the Black Sea and three more onto land. Anti-aircraft fire destroyed the remaining three. Again, officials reported no casualties – but they did report a hit on an ammunition depot, and shrapnel damage to a private house.

Ukrainian officials have by now claimed responsibility. Newsweek quoted Andriy Yusov of the Ukrainian intelligence service as boasting that Russia lacks air supremacy. Yusov also clearly threatened more such attacks. Presumably these would be in retaliation for repeated attacks against grain export infrastructure in Odessa. These attacks in turn began after the Ukrainian navy staged a second attack on the Kerch Strait Bridge. Two civilians died and a third, their daughter, remains in hospital.

Official statements

Reportage comes from The Associated Press, CNN, France24, and the BBC. In addition, Security Council Deputy Chief Dmitri Medvedev and the Russian Foreign Ministry issued separate statements.

Dmitri Medvedev put the attacks into the perspective of the vaunted Ukrainian counteroffensive, which all observers now acknowledge has failed. He also threatened retaliation and gave some details.

Our enemy is unable to achieve success during the counteroffensive. So, information victories are needed. Let them be inflated and irrational. Therefore, strikes on civilian targets for the Nazis and the population recruited by them are also acceptable. Many ukroimbeciles sincerely rejoice in them. Moreover, the degree of tension in Ukrainian society is growing. A part of the population, though scared, has not forgotten how to think yet. And the owners in the West are impatient: where, finally, is your fucking help?

Therefore, Bandera bastards are increasingly choosing peaceful, civilian targets for their dastardly strikes. Everyone should be ready for this.

And we need to choose non-standard targets for our strikes. Not only storage facilities, energy hubs and oil bases. There are other places where we are not expected yet. And where the effect will be very significant.

The Foreign Ministry issued this statement giving details of the attacks and the countering of them:

❗️ Application (https://mid.ru/ru/foreign_policy/news/1898153/) The Russian Foreign Ministry in connection with the Ukrainian attacks of Moscow and Crimea.

According to the message (https://t.me/MID_Russia/30100) of the Ministry of Defense of the Russian Federation, early in the morning of July 24, there were attempts to attack objects in Moscow with the help of two Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles. All of them were suppressed by electronic warfare and crashed. There are no casualties and no serious damage. Two non-residential buildings were damaged.

On July 24, a helicopter-type drone without an explosive device fell on the territory of the central cemetery of the Zelenograd district of Moscow.

On the night of July 24, an attempt by the Kiev regime to attack objects in Crimea with 17 drones was also stopped. 14 drones were suppressed by means of electronic warfare, 11 of them crashed in the Black Sea, three more fell on the territory of the peninsula. Three drones were destroyed by air defense forces. There are no casualties. According to the head of the Republic of Crimea S.V.Aksenov, a hit was recorded in an ammunition depot in the Dzhankoy district. Fragments of the UAV damaged a private house in the Kirovsky district.

Ukraine has already claimed responsibility for these attacks. The head of the Ministry of Finance of the country, M. Fedorov, publicly confirmed the involvement of the Zelensky regime in them and said that Kiev would continue such attacks, and their number would grow.

We regard the incident as another use of terrorist methods by the military-political leadership of Ukraine, intimidation of the civilian population. These attacks had no military meaning. We strongly condemn this yet another crime of the Kiev regime. We call on international organizations to give it a proper assessment.

Behind the brazen actions of the Ukrainian neo-Nazis is the West’s focus on further aggravation of the situation.

The Investigative Committee of Russia has opened criminal cases on the mentioned facts. All the guilty will be found and punished.

The Russian side reserves the right to take tough retaliatory measures.

Both translations are from Yandex.