MOSCOW (AFP): Russian air defences destroyed a drone approaching Moscow and two in a region bordering Ukraine, authorities said early Monday.
Air defences in the Lyubertsy district southeast of the capital “destroyed a drone flying towards Moscow,” the city’s mayor Sergei Sobyanin wrote on Telegram, without naming an attacker.
“There were no casualties or damage, according to initial reports. Emergency services are on the scene.”
Russia’s defence ministry also said air defences destroyed a drone over Lyubertsy district around 4:30 am (0130 GMT) and blamed Kyiv for the attempted attack.
Air traffic at Moscow’s Domodedovo and Vnukovo airports was suspended, the state-run TASS news agency reported earlier, citing the aviation service.
Two other drones were destroyed by air defences over the Bryansk region bordering Ukraine, Russia’s defence ministry said on Telegram.
It did not say whether there had been damage or casualties.
The capital and other Russian regions have been targeted by a barrage of Ukrainian drone attacks in recent days after Kyiv vowed earlier this summer to “return” the conflict to Russia.
Ukraine captures village of Robotyne
Ukraine announced Monday that its forces had recaptured the village of Robotyne on the southern frontline, where its troops have focused a counteroffensive against entrenched Russian positions.
Kyiv launched its pushback in June after stockpiling Western-supplied weapons, building up assault battalions and working to degrade Russian positions.
“Robotyne has been liberated. Our forces are advancing southeast of Robotyne and south of Mala Tokmachka,” Deputy Defence Minister Ganna Malyar said on television.
Both settlements are in the Zaporizhzhia region, which the Kremlin claimed to have annexed last year despite not having military control over it.
Ukraine’s advance on the southern front has been limited, spurring a political debate about whether the offensive is succeeding.
Ukrainian forces are crashing into Russian defensive lines of trenches and minefields that are kilometres deep, and its forces have clawed back just several villages in the south and pressured the flanks of Bakhmut, a war-scarred town in the east.
Malyar said Monday that Ukrainian troops were advancing south of Bakhmut and that they had recaptured one square kilometre (around one-third a square mile) there over the last week of fighting.
She also acknowledged a Russian push to take back territory in the northeast of Ukraine, describing fighting in the Kharkiv region as “very intense” over the past week.
