Moscow airports temporarily closed after Ukraine drone attacks

A sustained Ukrainian drone assault on Russia precipitated Moscow’s main airports to be quickly closed and noticed not less than 140 flights cancelled, officers mentioned.

Greater than 230 Ukrainian drones had been downed over Russia since Saturday morning – together with 27 over the capital – in response to the Russian defence ministry.

In line with Russia’s aviation watchdog, the 4 main airports serving the capital had been disrupted and greater than 130 flights additionally needed to be redirected. All have since resumed regular operations.

In the meantime, not less than three folks had been killed throughout Russian air strikes on Ukraine in a single day, in response to regional officers.

Russia’s Affiliation of Tour Operators (Ator) mentioned on Sunday that Moscow airports had been closed 10 instances in 24 hours as a result of strikes.

The Kaluga area, southwest of Moscow, was additionally affected. Russia’s defence ministry mentioned it had intercepted 45 drones since Saturday morning, leading to Kaluga Worldwide Airport additionally being quickly closed.

Russia’s defence ministry mentioned drones had been additionally shot down over areas close to the Ukrainian border together with Rostov and Bryansk, in addition to over the Black Sea. No fatalities had been reported.

This isn’t the primary time that Ukrainian drone assaults have precipitated journey disruption in Russia. In Might, at least 60,000 passengers were stranded at airports throughout the nation after Kyiv launched greater than 500 drones in a 24-hour interval, in response to Russia’s defence ministry.

Regional officers in Ukraine mentioned two folks died after Russian air strikes in numerous components of Donetsk, whereas a 78-year-old girl died after residential buildings burned down in Sumy.

Ukraine’s air drive mentioned it shot down 18 out of 57 Russian drones in a single day into Sunday, whereas an extra seven drones had been misplaced after their radars had been jammed.

In addition to Sumy and Donetsk, different front-line areas of Kharkiv and Dnipropetrovsk had been attacked, as was Zaporizhzhia.

The newest assaults come because the Kremlin’s spokesman, Dmitry Peskov, mentioned that Russian President Vladimir Putin was prepared to maneuver in direction of a peace settlement with Ukraine however that Moscow’s precedence was to “obtain our targets”.

“President Putin has repeatedly spoken of his need to carry the Ukrainian settlement to a peaceable conclusion as quickly as doable. It is a lengthy course of, it requires effort, and it isn’t straightforward,” he mentioned in a televised interview.

It has been practically three-and-a-half years since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

On Saturday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky proposed a new round of talks with Moscow, geared toward restarting negotiations that halted final month.

Earlier makes an attempt by Russia and Ukraine to barter an finish to the preventing have failed to realize a ceasefire, however have resulted in prisoner swaps.

Zelensky additionally repeated his readiness to fulfill Russia’s Vladimir Putin face-to-face, saying: “A gathering on the management degree is required to actually guarantee peace.”

Ukraine was this week given a lift when US President Donald Trump – who has prior to now typically expressed help and admiration for Russia’s chief – introduced that the US would send “top-of-the-line weapons” to Ukraine via Nato countries.

Trump additionally threatened Russia with extreme tariffs if a deal to finish the conflict isn’t reached inside 50 days, and later told the BBC that he was “disenchanted” with Putin however “not finished”.

Reacting to this in Sunday’s interview, Peskov mentioned: “Everybody has grown accustomed to his [Trump’s] moderately harsh and easy rhetoric.

“On the similar time, he reaffirms his intention to proceed doing all the pieces doable to facilitate a peaceable settlement.”