Ukrainian Drones Hit Moscow and Crimea After Volodymyr Zelenskyy Vows Revenge for Odesa Strikes

Ukrainian drones attacked Moscow early Monday, gutting the upper floors of an office building and leaving a trail of debris not far from the headquarters of Russia’s defense ministry, officials and media reports said.

“Today, at about 4:00 am, drone strikes on two non-residential buildings were recorded,” Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Telegram. “There were no serious damages or casualties.”

The defense ministry said that two drones "were suppressed and crashed" over the capital. 

The attempted drone strike comes after days of punishing Russian attacks on the Ukrainian port city of Odesa and critical grain terminals and warehouses. At least one person was killed and 22 injured on Sunday as Russian missiles damaged two dozen cultural landmarks across the city, including the Transfiguration Cathedral.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Sunday promised "a retaliation to Russian terrorists for Odesa."

The strikes on Moscow were a symbolic blow, even as human casualties and physical damage mounted in Ukraine. Streets near the drone crashes were closed on Monday morning.

"I was asleep and was woken up by a blast, everything started shaking," Polina, a young woman who lives near the high-rise building, told Reuters.

More than 1,000 miles south of the Russian capital, a swarm of Ukrainian drones attacked military installations in Crimea, striking an ammunition depot, Russian proxy governor Sergey Aksyonov said. 

“During the night of July 24, an attempt by the Kyiv regime to carry out a terrorist attack with seventeen unmanned aerial vehicles on objects on the territory of the Crimean peninsula was foiled,” Russia’s defense ministry said on Telegram.

Russian defenses brought down 14 through electronic jamming, and three were shot down. “There are no casualties as a result of the thwarted terrorist attack,” the ministry said.

The foreign ministry in Moscow condemned the attack.

"We regard the incident as another use of terrorist methods by the military-political leadership of Ukraine, intimidation of the civilian population." the ministry said in a statement. 

"These attacks had no military meaning...The Russian side reserves the right to take tough retaliatory measures."