Russia says skyscraper damaged in Moscow drone raid

Aug. 1 (UPI) -- Russia's Defense Ministry accused Ukraine of damaging a Moscow office tower in a drone raid early Tuesday.

Three drones targeted several facilities in the Russian capital with two destroyed by Air Defense Forces above two outer suburbs, but the third crashed into the 50-story building in the Moskva City complex after being jammed by "electronic" means the country's state-run Tass news agency reported.

"Attempted terrorist attack on behalf of the Kyiv regime with the use of unmanned aerial vehicles that targeted various facilities in Moscow and the Moscow Region was foiled. Two Ukrainian UAVs were downed by Air Defense Forces over the territory of the Odintsovo and Naro-Fominsk districts in the Moscow Region," the defense ministry said.

"Another drone was neutralized with the use of electronic warfare and after the remote-operative lost control it crash-landed into one of the non-residential buildings of Moscow-City complex."

There were no reports of injuries, according to emergency services, but the glazing above the 17th floor of the glass-clad IQ-Quarter Tower 1 was damaged.

Moscow mayor Sergey Sobyanin confirmed one of the drones had hit the same building targeted in a raid on Sunday.

"The facade of the 21st floor of the building sustained damage with 150 square meters of glazing broken. Emergency services are working at the scene of the incident," Sobyanin wrote on Telegram.

Elsewhere, two Russian Navy patrol boats in the Black Sea off Crimea fired on and destroyed three sea drones overnight Monday, the defense ministry said on its Telegram account.

"All three unmanned enemy boats were destroyed by fire from the ships' standard weapons," the ministry said.

The patrol boats Vasily Bykov and Sergei Kotov were deployed on control-of-navigation tasks 211 miles southwest of the Russian Navy's Black Sea Fleet base in Sevastopol.

The ministry said the assault was a copycat of an attack on the Sergei Kotov at the beginning of last week that was also repelled.

Kyiv did not immediately confirm nor deny responsibility for any of the attacks.

The defense ministry claimed Sunday it had intercepted Ukrainian drones above Moscow in a drone raid in which two skyscrapers were hit including a 50-story building in the west of the city that sustained damage to its fifth and sixth floors.

While being careful to avoid taking responsibility, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine was growing in strength and that the war was "gradually returning to Russia's territory, to its symbolic centers and military bases," said Zelensky.

"This is an inevitable, natural, and absolutely fair."