Russian authorities said Wednesday that Moscow came under the largest attack yet by Ukrainian drones since the start of fighting in 2022, and that it destroyed all of them.
Russia destroyed 45 Ukrainian drones overnight, Russia’s Ministry of Defense said. It said 11 were destroyed over the Moscow region, 23 over the Bryansk region, six over Belgorod, three over Kaluga and two over Kursk.
“This was one of the biggest attempts of all time to attack Moscow using drones,” Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said on his Telegram channel. He said all of the drones were destroyed because strong defenses have been created around the capital.
Russian President Vladimir Putin meanwhile joined Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov on Tuesday to inspect Chechen troops and volunteers readying to fight Ukraine, the Kremlin said, in what was Putin’s first trip in 13 years to the North Caucasus republic.
The previously unannounced trip to the mostly Muslim republic that is part of Russia comes as Moscow fights to push Ukrainian forces out of its Kursk region two weeks after they smashed through the border in the largest invasion of Russia since World War Two.
“As long as we have men like you, we are absolutely, absolutely invincible,” Putin told troops at the Russian Special Forces University, a training school in Chechnya’s Gudermes, according to a transcript on the Kremlin’s website.
“It is one thing to shoot at a shooting range here, and another thing to put your life and health at risk. But you have an inner need to defend the Fatherland and the courage to make such a decision.”
The foreign occupation of Russian land has been an embarrassment for Putin and his army.
The Institute for the Study of War, a think tank based in Washington, said in its daily report late Tuesday that the Ukrainians have made additional advances in their incursion, now in its third week. It noted that Ukrainian forces appear to be striking Russian pontoon bridges and pontoon engineering equipment over the Seym River in an area west of the Kurst oblast.
The daring incursion into Russia has raised morale in Ukraine and changed the dynamic of the fighting. But the gains there come as Ukraine continues to lose ground in its eastern industrial region of Donbas.
