Russia shot down nearly 300 Ukrainian drones overnight, one of Kyiv’s largest attempted attacks of the four-year war and a barrage that forced Moscow airports to temporarily close, Russian officials said Thursday.
Of the 287 drones “intercepted and shot down” by Russian air defences, 32 were headed towards Moscow, the defence ministry said in a statement posted on Telegram.
All four airports in the Russian capital temporarily suspended flights, according to Rosaviatsia, Russia’s civil aviation authority.
“We’ve been at the airport for over 12 hours now,” Raisa, who lives in the Moscow region and declined to give her surname, told AFP while waiting at the capital’s Vnukovo airport with her three children.
Their flight was being postponed “by an hour every hour”, the 40-year-old doctor said.
The airspace closures, later lifted, also forced the plane of Armenian Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan, due in Moscow, to divert to Saint Petersburg.
Pashinyan’s aircraft “did not land at night due to the temporary closure of Moscow’s airspace”, his spokeswoman, Nazeli Baghdasaryan, said on Facebook.
Pashinyan flew to the Russian capital later on Thursday, his press service later said.
Ukraine, whose airspace has been completely closed since Russia launched its offensive in February 2022, said Moscow had fired a total of 151 drones and three missiles overnight, according to its air force.
The head of the eastern Poltava regional military administration said that Russia had attacked local energy facilities, causing fires.
In an interview last week, the CEO of Ukraine’s state-run gas operator told AFP the country may be facing its toughest winter of the war.
Naftogaz CEO Sergiy Koretsky said this year’s strikes have been more intense and started earlier in the winter, compounding the impact.
According to an AFP analysis of Ukrainian air force statistics, Russia has launched record numbers of drones and missiles at Ukraine in recent months.
Ukraine and its allies have been pushing for a plan to end Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II, with officials in Kyiv on Wednesday telling AFP that an updated proposal had been submitted to Washington.
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