Russia on Tuesday issued arrest warrants for Ukraine’s two top military commanders — hours after Moscow was hit with an unprecedented barrage of drone strikes that President Vladimir Putin described as Kyiv’s attempt to provoke and intimidate his regime.
Commander-in-Chief Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the Ukrainian military’s top general, and Oleksandr Syrskyi, the commander of Ukrainian ground forces, were placed on the Russian Interior Ministry’s “wanted” list, the state-run RIA news agency reported.
The report did not indicate what charges the Ukrainian commanders are facing.
The Investigative Committee of Russia is also probing Syrskyi and Zaluzhnyi for the shelling of “civilians and civilian facilities” in the contested Donbas region of Ukraine.
Ukrainian drones struck wealthy districts of Moscow on Tuesday, in what one politician called the most dangerous attack since World War II, while Kyiv was also hit from the air for the third time in 24 hours.
The news comes just hours after unmanned Ukrainian drones pummeled wealthy neighborhoods of Moscow, in what one Russia politician decried as the most dangerous attack on the country since World War II.
Putin responded to the incident by saying that “Kyiv chose the path of intimidation of Russian citizens and attacks on residential buildings.”
“We are concerned about attempts to draw a response from Russia,” he continued. “It seems that is what [Ukrainians] want … Kyiv provokes us to mirror actions. We will see what to do about this.”
Russia’s leader added that Moscow’s air defense worked “satisfactorily,” but admitted that is still “work to be done to make it better,” reported the state-controlled news agency TASS.
Russia’s defense ministry said eight drones targeting civilians were shot down or diverted with electronic jammers, although the Telegram channel Baza reported that more than 25 were involved.
The destructive volley hit close to home for Putin, whose official presidential residence, Novo-Ogoryovo, is located in the affluent Rublyovka suburb that came under fire Tuesday.
The district is dotted with palatial homes belonging to several members of Putin’s circle, including former president Dmitry Medvedev and current Prime Minister Mikhail Mishustin.
Mykhailo Podolyak, a senior aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, denied Kyiv’s direct involvement in the attack on Moscow but said “we are pleased to watch events” and that they forecast more such strikes.
Two people were injured in the drone attacks and several apartment blocks were briefly evacuated, according to Moscow’s mayor. Residents said they heard loud bangs followed by the smell of gasoline.
Some witnesses filmed a drone being shot down and a plume of smoke rising into the sky.
The White House said it was still gathering information on the reports of drones striking in Moscow, while reiterating that Washington did not support attacks inside Russia.
Washington is “focused on providing Ukraine with the equipment and training they need to retake their own sovereign territory,” a spokesperson said in a statement.
Meanwhile, British Foreign Secretary James Cleverly argued that Ukraine has the right not only to defend itself on its own territory, but also to “project force beyond its borders to undermine Russia’s ability to project force into Ukraine itself.”
Russian lawmaker Maxim Ivanov called it the most serious assault on Moscow since Nazi Germany’s invasion in World War II, saying no Russian could now avoid “the new reality”.
“The sabotage and terrorist attacks of Ukraine will only increase,” said another Russian lawmaker, Alexander Khinshtein. “Do not underestimate the enemy!”
Russia’s Foreign Ministry threatened to take “the most severe measures” in retaliation for what it called Kyiv’s “terrorist attacks.”
“Assurances from NATO officials that the Kyiv regime will not strike deep into Russian territory turn out to be completely hypocritical,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
Russian forces have been pounding civilian targets in Kyiv with missiles and drones since the earliest days of the war, but Tuesday marked only the second time that Moscow had come under fire.
Throughout Ukraine Tuesday, the latest round of Russian attacks over the past 24 hours killed at least four people and wounded 34 others, including two children.
In Kyiv, more than 20 Iranian-made Shahed drones were shot down by air defense. A 33-year-old woman was killed by falling debris from a drone and 11 others were hurt.
In May alone, Russia attacked Ukraine’s battered capital with drones and missiles 17 times, mostly at night, to break the defenders’ morale ahead of the anticipated counteroffensive.
With Post wires