Drone Hits Moscow City: Debris Found Near Ministry of Defense, Russia Blames Ukraine

The building that was hit by a drone attack in Moscow City. (Source: TASS/Vyacheslav Prokofyev)

JAKARTA - Russia's Defense Ministry accused Ukraine of carrying out a drone strike against Moscow on Monday, after the city's leader said two buildings were hit, while media reported debris was found not far from the defense ministry building.

The Ministry of Defense said on the messaging app Telegram, two drones were "successfully shot down."

Meanwhile, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on the Telegram messaging app that two non-residential buildings were hit at around 04:00 local time, but did not cause serious damage or casualties.

It was not immediately clear whether the drone hit the building when it went down, or whether it was deliberately targeting the building.

Neither the Ministry of Defense nor the Mayor of Moscow said where the drone was intercepted.

Separately, Russia's state news agency quoted emergency services as reporting that the wreckage of the drone was found near a building on Komsomolsky Street, which runs in the center of Moscow City. The location is only about 2 kilometers (1.2 miles) from the Defense Ministry building.

Traffic was closed on Komsomolsky Street as well as on Likhachev Street in the south of Moscow, where a high-rise office building was damaged, Russian news agencies reported.

"I was sleeping and woke up from an explosion, everything started shaking," said Polina, a young woman who lives near a high-rise building on Likhachev Street.

The Russian Ministry of Defense television channel Zvezda published a short video on its Telegram channel showing a multi-storey building with missing windows on the upper floors and a damaged structure.

Another Russian Telegram channel, which has ties to Russian security forces, published a video of the rubble of glass and concrete on what it called Komsomolsky Avenue.

The alleged attack comes after nearly a week of Russian shelling of the southern Ukrainian port of Odesa, where on Sunday a missile killed one person, injured several and damaged the historic Orthodox Cathedral.

There was no immediate comment from Kyiv regarding these allegations. Ukraine has hardly ever publicly claimed responsibility for attacks inside Russia or on Russian-controlled territory in Ukraine. But in recent months they have said destroying Russia's military infrastructure will aid Kyiv's counterattack.