A Moscow skyscraper has been hit by a drone for the second time in two days as Ukraine warned the conflict would soon move to Russian soil.
The highrise building housing government workers in the Russian capital was damaged in the latest incursion.
Moscow’s mayor Sergei Sobyanin said the “glazing was destroyed” on the IQ Quarter Tower 1, but no one was injured.
The building houses members of Russia’s economic development, digital, industry and trade ministries, reports Reuters.
Mr Sobyanin said it was the same tower at Moskva Citi that was struck earlier in the week.
“One flew into the same tower at the Moskva City complex hit previously. The facade has been damaged on the 21st floor. Glazing was destroyed over 150 square metres.”
Moskva Citi was hit by a drone last Sunday – one of several such attacks that have generated widespread unease.
‘War is moving’
Kyiv did not claim responsibility, but Ukraine presidential official Mykhailo Podolyak said on Twitter that Russia could soon have war on its on soil.
“Moscow is rapidly getting used to a full-fledged war, which, in turn, will soon finally move to the territory of the authors of the war to collect all their debts”, he wrote.
“Everything that will happen in #Russia is an objective historical process. More unidentified drones, more collapse, more civil conflicts, more war.”
Russia said its anti-aircraft units had downed drones targeting Moscow.
Russia’s Defence Ministry, in a post on Telegram, said its forces had “thwarted an a terrorist attack by the Kyiv regime” and downed two drones in the suburbs west of the city centre on Tuesday.
“Yet another [drone] was hit by radio-electronic equipment and, having run out of control, crashed on the territory of the complex of non-residential buildings at Moskva Citi,” the ministry said, referring to a business centre in the capital.
Moscow police cordon off the damaged IQ Quarter Tower 1 skyscraper. Photo: Getty
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Monday that Ukrainian attacks on Moscow and other Russian targets were “acts of desperation” and that Russia was taking all measures possible to protect against strikes.
Ukraine rarely comments on incidents that on Russian territory in its war against Moscow, now in its 17th month.
But this week, in an oblique reference to drone attacks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said the war “is returning to the territory of Russia – to its symbolic centres and military bases”.
