Two Russian airports suspend flights amid surge in Ukrainian drone attacks

Moscow closed the airspace over Vnukovo airport temporarily on Friday, with all arrivals and departures suspended amid a surge in Ukrainian drone attacks. Russia’s RIA news agency said the move was due to a suspected drone flight in the area. “For reasons beyond the control of the airport, temporary restrictions on the landing and take-offs of aircraft were introduced in Vnukovo,” the airport said. “For safety reasons, some of the flights were redirected to other airports of the Moscow aviation hub,” it said. Over the last few days, there have been a number of drone attacks in the Moscow area that Russia has blamed on Ukraine. Earlier on Friday, Russian air defences downed a Ukrainian drone as it flew towards an unspecified target in Moscow, the defence ministry said, the latest in a flurry of drone attacks on the Russian capital. Moscow’s Vnukovo airport and Kaluga airport, some 150 km (95 miles) southwest of the capital, were temporarily shut due to a suspected drone flight. They are in the process of being reopened. “… an attempt by the Kyiv regime to carry out a terrorist attack by an unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) on a facility in Moscow was thwarted,” the ministry said in a statement, adding the drone was jammed and crashed in a forest west of Moscow. “There are no casualties and no damage,” it said. Drone air strikes deep inside Russia have increased since a drone was destroyed over the Kremlin in early May. Civilian areas of the capital were hit later in May and a Moscow business district was targeted twice in three days earlier this month. Russia said on Thursday that it had downed 13 Ukrainian drones seeking to attack Moscow and also the largest city in Crimea, which Russia annexed from Ukraine in 2014. Ukraine does not comment on who is behind attacks on Russian territory, although officials have publicly expressed satisfaction over them.