On the night of Monday May 5 to Tuesday May 6, Ukraine launched more than a hundred drones on Russian territory, targeting Moscow in particular and disrupting the operation of a dozen airports, Russian authorities said three days before the commemorations of the victory over Nazi Germany.
As the Russian capital hosts a major military parade this Friday in the presence of Vladimir Putin and some twenty foreign leaders, including China’s Xi Jinping, its mayor Sergei Sobyanin reported that nineteen Ukrainian drones targeting the capital had been intercepted by anti-aircraft defense. He added that debris fell on a major avenue south of Moscow, without causing any casualties. Russian media broadcast images of a cracked supermarket window and the blackened facade of a residential building.
105 Ukrainian drones
A total of 105 Ukrainian drones targeted Russia overnight, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement. Four of the capital’s airports – Sheremetyevo, Domodedovo, Vnukovo and Zhukovsky – imposed temporary operating restrictions overnight, with some temporarily closing their runways, according to Russia’s civil aviation agency, Rosaviatsia. Operations at several other Russian airports had to be temporarily interrupted, notably in major cities on the Volga such as Nizhny Novgorod, Samara, Saratov and Volgograd. The latter is the former Stalingrad, scene of the deadliest battle in history, which saw the defeat of the 6th Nazi Army in 1942-1943 and is considered a turning point in the Second World War.
Russia to observe three-day ceasefire
The governors of the southern regions of Voronezh and Penza reported that eighteen and ten Ukrainian drones respectively had been intercepted in their territories, with no casualties. In the border region of Kursk, a Ukrainian attack wounded two teenagers aged 14 and 17 and caused power cuts, said acting regional governor Alexander Khinstein.
On Sunday night, Russia said it had intercepted a drone attack aimed at Moscow, which is rarely targeted and where life remains almost normal despite the large-scale offensive launched by the Russian army in Ukraine in February 2022. On the Ukrainian side, a Russian drone strike killed one person in the Odessa region, according to Governor Oleg Kiper.
Russia said it would observe a three-day ceasefire from May 8 to 10, to mark the commemoration of the victory over Nazi Germany in the Second World War. Ukraine has not made it clear whether it intends to follow the truce announced by President Vladimir Putin.
