Moscow: Ukraine launches its largest drone attack

The conflict front between Ukraine and Russia witnessed a noticeable escalation last week, marked by intensive drone attacks.

According to Rodion Miroshnik, ambassador-at-large at the Russian Foreign Ministry, in his weekly report, Ukrainian forces carried out more than 100 drone strikes on Moscow and its surroundings between May 11 and 17, representing the largest such attack on the Russian capital since the outbreak of the conflict.

Miroshnik explained that the strikes targeted civilian facilities in the capital and its suburbs, hitting densely populated residential neighborhoods and crowded urban areas, resulting in civilian deaths and injuries, as reported by the “Russia Today” website.

The Ukrainian attacks were not limited to the capital but extended to the cities of Ryazan, Belgorod, and Shakhtarsk, causing both human casualties and material damage to infrastructure and inhabited areas.

These developments come amid ongoing escalation along the front lines, while international mediation efforts continue in pursuit of a diplomatic settlement to the conflict that erupted in February 2022.

Two days ago, Russia announced that it had been subjected to one of the largest Ukrainian aerial attacks since the war began four years ago, carried out using around 600 drones and resulting in four deaths across the country. An operation that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky described as “fully justified.”

Zelensky wrote on social media: “Our responses to Russia’s prolongation of the war and its attacks on our cities and communities are fully justified.”

This came three days after deadly Russian strikes on the Ukrainian capital that killed nearly twenty people, according to Kyiv, which vowed to respond.

Although the region surrounding Moscow is frequently targeted by drones, the city of Moscow itself, located more than 400 kilometers from the Ukrainian border, is rarely targeted.