All airports shut in Moscow as Ukraine launches drone attack

Russia says Ukraine has launched an overnight drone attack targeting Moscow for the second night in a row, BBC reports.

All four of the capital’s major airports were closed for several hours to ensure safety but later reopened, Russia’s aviation watchdog Rosaviatsia said on Telegram.

Moscow’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, said on social media at least 19 Ukrainian drones had been destroyed before they reached the city “from different directions”. He said some of the debris had landed on one of the key highways into the city, but there were no casualties.

Ukraine has not yet commented. But the mayor of Kharkiv said Russia had also carried out drone strikes in the city overnight, as well as in the Kyiv area.

As well as in Moscow, the governors of other Russian cities, including Penza and Voronezh, also said they had been targeted by drones overnight into Tuesday.

Unconfirmed reports by Russian military bloggers suggested windows of an apartment in the south of Moscow were smashed.

It is the second night in a row that Russia has reported a drone attack by Ukraine - on Monday, Russia’s defence ministry said it had destroyed 26 Ukrainian drones overnight.

Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than three years ago, Kyiv has launched several drone attacks on Moscow. Its biggest attack in March killed three people.

It comes after reports on Monday of fresh attempts by Ukraine to cross into Russia’s Kursk region.

Kyiv said it had hit a drone command unit in the Kursk region on Sunday near the Russian village of Tyotkino, according to the Ukrainian general staff.

In April, Moscow said it had regained control of the entire region, nine months after a Ukrainian forces launched a surprise invasion. Kyiv insists it still has soldiers operating across the border.