Anti-aircraft units intercept drone south of Moscow, no damage or injuries, mayor says

Russian anti-aircraft units intercepted a drone south of Moscow and there were no injuries or damage from falling debris, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said early on Friday.

Sobyanin, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said the drone, headed for Moscow, was downed in Podolsk district, just south of the capital. Emergency crews and specialists were on the scene.

The governor of Bryansk region, which borders Ukraine, said anti-aircraft units had downed three Ukrainian drones overnight with no damage or injuries.

And in Belgorod region, also on the border, two Ukrainian drones were downed, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

Ukraine has stepped up drone attacks on oil processing facilities in different regions of Russia since the start of the year, disrupting 15 percent of Russia’s oil refining capacity, according to an estimate by a NATO official at the beginning of April.

One such strike on Thursday hit a major oil processing plant in Bashkortostan region some 1,500 km (930 miles) away, a Kyiv intelligence source said, the longest-range such attack since the start of the war in February 2022.

Drone attacks targeting Moscow are rarer occurrences.