Zelensky says ‘war is returning to Russia’ after Moscow drone attack

‘War is returning to Russia’, Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky has said after at least three drones struck Moscow this weekend.

The Russian Defense Ministry said on Sunday that Ukrainian forces were behind the overnight strikes, though Zelensky did not claim responsibility.

In his nightly address, Zelensky did not explicitly mention the drones but said attacks are an inevitability of war.

‘Today is the 522nd day of the so-called “Special Military Operation”, which the Russian leadership thought would last a couple of weeks,’ he said from the western Ukrainian city of Ivano-Frankivsk.

‘Gradually, the war is returning to the territory of Russia – to its symbolic centres and military bases, and this is an inevitable, natural and absolutely fair process.’

Russian defence officials said on Telegram that it had ‘thwarted’ Kyiv’s ‘terrorist attack’ against the country.

Russian defence officials accused Kyiv of carrying out a ‘terrorist attack’ (Picture: EPA)

Two drones hit the Moscow-City business centre (Picture: EPA)

The skyscraper, one of many in the business district, contained the officers of several government ministries (Picture: Military Advisor/Twitter)

One of the strikes was destroyed in Odintsovo, a city about 15 miles southwest of Moscow, while two struck commercial buildings in the capital.

According to photographs released by the Russian media outlet RTVI, a drone gutted the office of the Ministry of Digital Development, Communications, and Mass Media inside one of the IQ-quarter skyscrapers.

Frequented by the country’s elite, the business skyscraper is one of many towers inside the Moscow International Business Center, also called Moscow-City.

No deaths have been reported but a security guard was reportedly injured.

A Ukrainian Air Forces spokesperson did not comment on the strikes but simply said Moscow ‘got what they wanted’.

‘There is always something flying in Russia, including Moscow. Those who are not affected by the war are now affected, which creates certain moods,’ Yuri Ihnat said, per the Kyiv Times.

Volodymyr Zelensky neither confirmed nor denied that Ukraine was behind the overnight attacks (Picture: AFP)

‘Russia can no longer claim it shot down everything.’

Ukraine has also been accused of carrying out an overnight drone attack on Crimea – the contested territory Russia annexed nearly a decade ago.

Officials claimed 16 drones were intercepted and a further nine suppressed, the state-owned news agency TASS reported. The claim could not be independently verified.

A drone also pelted a police station in Russia’s western Bryansk region overnight, regional governor Alexander Bogomaz claimed on Telegram.

‘There are no victims,’ he said, adding that the village of Lomakovka was also hit, damaging four homes and two cars.

Moscow, about 500km from the Ukrainian border, had rarely been the target during the war until a wave of drone strikes this year.

They have so far caused no deaths and are far less severe than the nightly strikes Russia conducts against Ukraine, with civilian areas and infrastructure the go-to targets.

Ukraine’s Air Force said Russia took aim at the Kherson and Dnipropetrovsk regions of southern Ukraine Saturday night.

The air force said in a Telegram post early Sunday morning all drones had been intercepted.

A Russian rocket killed one person and injured five people in Sumy, northeastern Ukraine, Saturday evening, Ukraine’s interior ministry said.

Get in touch with our news team by emailing us at [email protected].

For more stories like this, check our news page.

Such attacks are ‘inevitable’, he said.