Ukraine targeted Moscow early on Tuesday in what seemed its biggest drone attack of the war on the Russian capital, killing at least one person, sparking fires and suspending air and train transport in the region, authorities said.
“Today at 4 a.m. a massive drone attack began on Moscow and the Moscow region,” Moscow Region Governor Andrei Vorobyov said in a post on the Telegram messaging app. “At the moment, one person is known to have died and three were injured.”
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that at least 69 drones were destroyed that approached the city in several waves.
Moscow and its surrounding region, with a population of at least 21 million, is one of the biggest metropolitan areas in Europe, alongside Istanbul.
Russia’s aviation watchdog said flights were suspended at all four of Moscow’s airports to ensure air safety after the attacks. Two other airports, in the Yaroslavl and Nizhny Novgorod regions, both east of Moscow, were also closed. Vorobyov said that at least seven apartments were damaged and residents forced to evacuate in a multi-story building in the Ramenskoye district of the Moscow region, about 50 km (31 miles) southeast of the Kremlin.
Rail infrastructure at the train station in the Domodedovo district, about 35 km south of Moscow, was damaged as result of falling drone debris, RIA news agency reported.
Baza, a news Telegram channel that is close to Russia’s security services, and other Russian news telegram channels posted videos of several residential fires around Moscow that they said were sparked by the attacks. The strikes came as the United States is pushing for an end to the three-year war that Russia started with its invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. On Tuesday, US and Ukrainian teams are scheduled to meet for peace talks in Saudi Arabia.
Governors of Ryazan region, just southeast of the Moscow region, and the Belgorod region on border with Ukraine, also said that their regions were under drone attacks. Several settlements in the Belgorod region were left without power, the regional governor said.
A November drone attack on Moscow, the largest in the war at that point, led to the destruction of at least 34 drones. At least one civilian was killed and dozens of homes wrecked around the capital.
Kyiv has often said that its strikes inside Russia are aimed at destroying infrastructure key to Moscow’s overall war efforts and are in response to Russia’s continued bombing of Ukraine.
Both sides deny targeting civilians in the attacks, but thousands of them have died in the conflict so far, the vast majority of them Ukrainian.
Ukraine’s biggest drone attack on Moscow kills one, disrupts air and train transport
https://arab.news/6qccy
Ukraine’s biggest drone attack on Moscow kills one, disrupts air and train transport
- Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that at least 69 drones were destroyed that approached the city in several waves
- Moscow and its surrounding region, with a population of at least 21 million, is one of the biggest metropolitan areas in Europe
US warns UK to stop arresting Palestine Action supporters
- Undersecretary of state for diplomacy: Arrests doing ‘more harm than good’ and ‘censoring’ free speech
- Group was banned in July 2025 after series of break-ins
LONDON: UK authorities should stop arresting protesters showing support for banned group Palestine Action, the White House has warned.
The US undersecretary of state for diplomacy said arrests are doing “more harm than good” and are “censoring” free speech.
Sarah Rogers told news site Semafor: “I would have to look at each individual person and each proscribed organization. I think if you support an organization like Hamas, then depending upon whether you’re coordinating, there are all these standards that get applied.
“This Palestine Action group, I’ve seen it written about. I don’t know what it did. I think if you just merely stand up and say, ‘I support Palestine Action’, then unless you are really coordinating with some violent foreign terrorist, I think that censoring that speech does more harm than good.”
So far, more than 2,000 people have been arrested in the UK for showing support for the group.
It was banned in July 2025 after a series of break-ins nationwide, including at a facility owned by a defense manufacturer and a Royal Air Force base, during which military aircraft were damaged.
Last year, Swedish climate activist Greta Thunberg was among those arrested while protesting for Palestine Action.
The group is challenging its ban, saying it should not be compared to terrorist organizations such as the Irish Republican Army, Daesh or Al-Qaeda.
The ban has been criticized by numerous bodies, with Amnesty International calling it a case of “problematic, overly broad and draconian restrictions on free speech.”
In Scotland, prosecutors have been offering to drop charges against some protesters in return for accepting a fine of £100 ($134.30).
Adam McGibbon, who was arrested at a demonstration in Edinburgh last year, refused the offer, saying: “The fact that the authorities are offering fines equivalent to a parking ticket for a ‘terrorism offence’ shows just how ridiculous these charges are. Do supporters of (Daesh) get the same deal?
“I refuse to pay this fine, as has everyone else I know who has been offered one. Just try and put all 3,000 of us who have defied this ban so far in jail.”
Rogers said the UK is also wrong to arrest people using the phrase “globalize the intifada” while demonstrating in support of Palestine, after police in Manchester said in December that it would detain people chanting it.
“I’m from New York City where thousands of people were murdered by jihadists,” she said. referring to the terror attacks of Sept. 11, 2001. “I don’t want an intifada in New York City, and I think anyone who does is disgusting, but should it be legal to say in most contexts? Yes.”
