The Russian capital, located more than 500 km from the Ukrainian border, was targeted by a drone attack, claimed by kyiv.
Ukraine claimed responsibility for the drone attack that hit Moscow overnight, illustrating the Russian capital’s vulnerability, while new strikes targeted Crimea and Ukraine’s Odessa region. Here is everything you need to remember from Monday, July 24.
kyiv claims drone attack on Moscow
Ukraine has claimed responsibility for the drone attack that hit Moscow overnight. This raid on Moscow was “a special operation of the GUR”, military intelligence, told AFP a source within the Ukrainian Defense who requested anonymity. This rare claim from Kiev comes after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky promised retaliatory measures following Russian bombings over the weekend in Odessa, which left two people dead and ravaged a cathedral.
One of the drones fell in the night on an important axis of the Russian capital, Komsomolsky Prospekt, near the Russian Ministry of Defense, while another drone hit the business center of Likhacheva street, in the south of Moscow.
Moscow says it foiled “a terrorist act”
Russia has claimed to have “neutralized” two Ukrainian drones in Moscow overnight from Sunday to Monday. The Russian Ministry of Defense claimed to have foiled a “terrorist act”stating that there was no “no casualties”.
Russia in turn plans to “severe reprisals” after these attacks on its capital and on Crimea, for its part declared Russian diplomacy, accusing the West of being “behind the brazen acts” from Kyiv.
Unesco specialists must go to Odessa
Unesco specialists are due to travel to Odessa (Ukraine) soon to document the partial destruction of the Transfiguration Cathedral, hit on Sunday July 23 by Russian missiles. “The organization stressed that the deliberate attack on cultural property and its destruction and deterioration can be considered a war crime”said the Ukrainian Ministry of Culture, which did not give a date for this visit.
The center of the port city, where the building is located, was inscribed on the UNESCO World Heritage List in January 2023.
A journalist injured near Bakhmout
An AFP video journalist was injured in a drone attack while reporting on a Ukrainian artillery position near Bakhmout in eastern Ukraine. Dylan Collins, a 35-year-old American based in Lebanon and serving in Ukraine, received multiple shrapnel wounds in the attack in a wooded area.
Nearly 100,000 Russian citizens fled to Turkey
Since the start of the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, more than 100,000 Russians have taken the path to Turkey, i.e. 25% of the migratory flow experienced by the country in 2022, detailed the Turkish Institute of Statistics (TUIK) in its latest report. Nearly 40,000 Ukrainians have also migrated to Turkey.
A “destroyed” grain shed near Odessa
A Russian drone attack targeted Ukrainian port infrastructure in the Odessa region. “A grain shed was destroyed and storage tanks for other cargo were damaged”wrote the Ukrainian army on Facebook.
“I strongly condemn the recent Russian attacks against Ukrainian civilian infrastructure on the Danube, very close to Romania”a member country of NATO, reacted the Romanian President, Klaus Iohannis.
Zelensky calls any extension of Ukrainian grain restrictions ‘unacceptable’
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky has judged “unacceptable” the possibility of an extension of restrictions on the export of Ukrainian cereals within the EU, as demanded by five neighboring countries of Ukraine in order to protect their farmers. “Any extension of the restrictions is absolutely unacceptable and frankly anti-European. Europe has the institutional capacity to act more rationally rather than closing the border to a particular commodity”, he said in his daily intervention broadcast on social networks. The Ukrainian president said he hoped that “the European party will fulfill its obligations” when the restrictions in place expire on September 15.
Poland, Bulgaria, Hungary, Slovakia and Romania on Wednesday asked Brussels to extend the embargo on Ukrainian grain imports into their territory until the end of the year..