On Tuesday, Ukraine launched a major drone attack on Russia that targeted Moscow and several other Russian regions, killing at least one civilian.
The civilian who was killed was a 46-year-old woman in Ramenskoye, a town in the Moscow Oblast. Moscow Governor Andrei Vorobyov said she died when the debris of a Ukrainian drone that was downed by Russian air defenses hit her high-rise apartment building.
Vorobyov said a total of two apartment buildings were hit, setting fire to several apartments. According to an Al Jazeera reporter in Moscow, 12 people were injured by the attack. The incident marked the largest Ukrainian attack on Moscow of the war.
The Russian Defense Ministry said that its air defenses downed a total of 144 Ukrainian drones, including 20 over Moscow and 72 over the Bryansk Oblast. According to TASS, no casualties or infrastructure damage were reported in other Russian regions.
The Ukrainian drone attack comes as Russia has stepped up its missile and drone bombardments targeting infrastructure across Ukraine. Russia escalated its attacks following the August 6 Ukrainian invasion of Russia’s Kursk Oblast.
Ukraine is pushing hard for the Biden administration to allow it to use US-provided missiles to launch long-range strikes inside Russia. Secretary of Defense Lloyd Austin appeared to throw cold water on the idea last week, but Secretary of State Antony Blinken said Tuesday that the president hasn’t ruled it out.
