Ukraine launches 45 drones targeting Russia; mayor says 'largest' drone attack on Moscow

Aug. 21 (UPI) -- Ukraine targeted Russia with at least 45 attack drones overnight, a quarter of them at Moscow in one of largest strikes against the Russian capital of the war, according to Russian authorities.

Russia's Ministry of Defense said its air defenses shot down all 45 drones, 11 of them over Moscow. The others were mostly destroyed over the Bryansk, Kursk and Belgorod border provinces amid a Ukrainian counter-offensive push into those regions that began Aug. 6.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said there had been no casualties and no damage from falling debris or ordnance -- the greatest danger from downed drones.

"This is one of the largest attempts to attack Moscow using drones of all time," said Sobyanin who credited what he called the "layered defenses of Moscow from enemy UAVs" for successfully repelling the attack.

Flight restrictions briefly imposed at airports in the Moscow region overnight were lifted Wednesday morning.

Russian President Vladimir Putin was 1,150 miles away from the Kremlin in the North Caucasus inspecting Chechnyian army units and volunteers preparing to ship out to the Ukraine battlefront, his first visit to the troubled Russian republic in 13 years.

Russia's military launched its own drone, missile and glide-bomb strikes overnight killing five people and injuring 31 despite the Ukraine Air Force saying its air defenses had shot down 50 of 69 the "Shahed" Iranian-type drones and one Kh-59/69 cruise missile over the country's eastern Sumy, Kharkiv, Donetsk and Zaporizhzhia regions.

Since Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, Kyiv has attacked Russian oil and gas facilities and military targets, many deep inside Russian territory in what it says is "fair" payback for repeated Russian attacks on its energy infrastructure.

About 500 firefighters were battling a blaze at an oil storage facility in Proletarsk in Russia's southern Rostov region on Tuesday, two days after the plant was struck by Ukrainian drones on Sunday.