This week, at least two drones have struck a skyscraper in Moscow, a sign that Ukraine is increasingly willing to take the war directly to Russia.
The building, which houses some government ministry offices, was initially damaged in a Sunday drone hit before a second on Tuesday. Russian defense officials accused Ukraine of perpetrating both, and said that both drones were “jammed” before crashing into the exact same skyscraper. Russian defense officials also said they intercepted two other drones outside Moscow overnight Tuesday, following a similar drone attack on Sunday in Moscow’s business district. On Thursday, regional authorities in Russia claimed it had shot down six Ukrainian drones outside of Moscow.
Ukraine has tended to be pretty coy regarding these kinds of attacks on Russian soil, but it was a bit more open about suggesting responsibility for the incidents earlier this week. “Gradually, the war is returning to the territory of Russia — to its symbolic centers and military bases, and this is an inevitable, natural and absolutely fair process,” President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a video address Sunday while avoiding outright ownership of the attack. In the aftermath of the apparent attack on Tuesday, Mykhailo Podolyak, an adviser to Zelenskyy, echoed that sentiment: “#Moscow is rapidly getting used to a full-fledged war, which, in turn, will soon finally move to the territory of the ‘authors of the war’ to collect all their debts …”
Ukraine probably isn’t being quite as shy about this drone attack because it wants to send a message, and it wants Moscow to know who sent it. Ukraine is trying to raise the cost of war, and to make it more visible to the Russian people, particularly the elite and the establishment, who’ve largely been insulated from the consequences of Russia’s invasion.
“By bringing the war home to this business district in Moscow, of course, Ukraine makes the point that, well, life may go on in most…
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