Ukraine Claims Drone Attack In Moscow

Moscow, (UrduPoint / Pakistan Point News - 25th Jul, 2023 ) :Ukraine on Monday claimed a drone attack in central Moscow, the latest in a series of strikes revealing Russian vulnerabilities, while Kyiv said Russian forces again hit grain facilities near Odesa.

Russia last week pulled out of a key deal which had allowed the safe export of Ukrainian grain through the Black Sea, and since then Kyiv has accused Russia of targeting grain supplies and infrastructure.

In Moscow, police cordoned off streets near the defence ministry where a drone crashed, while the second shattered glass walls of an office building in a southern district.

A Ukrainian defence source told AFP that the attack -- one day after Kyiv vowed to retaliate for a Russian missile strike in the city of Odesa -- was a "special operation" by Ukraine's military intelligence.

Russia said that the attacks could warrant "tough retaliatory measures." "We regard what happened as yet another use of terrorist methods and intimidation of the civilian population," Russia's foreign ministry added.

AFP reporters at the scene of the strike near the ministry saw a two-storey building with its roof torn apart by the impact of the drone's crash.

"It was 3:39am. The house really shook," said Vladimir, 70, who lives nearby. "It is scandalous that a Ukrainian drone almost flew into the defence ministry." In Crimea, the peninsula annexed by Russia in 2014, Moscow-installed governor Sergei Aksyonov said an ammunition depot had also been hit in by drones.

Meanwhile, in Ukraine's Odesa region, officials reported a four-hour Russian drone attack on port infrastructure on the Danube River.

"A grain hangar was destroyed and tanks for storing other types of cargo were damaged," Ukraine's southern military command said on Telegram.

The Danube delta region, which spans across Romania and Ukraine, is being used as an export route for Ukrainian grain -- a key factor in the conflict.