New drone attack on Moscow. A month after the first, which targeted the Kremlin, the contours of which still remain an enigma, and a week after the spectacular incursion of Russian paramilitary groups from Ukraine into the Belgorod region, the Russian capital was again targeted on Tuesday 30 May at dawn. Four to ten drones were destroyed on the outskirts of the city, according to several Telegram accounts which published supporting videos. The attack caused “minor damage to several buildings” without causing any casualties, said Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin.
While the launch of the Ukrainian counter-offensive is expected from one week to the next, sabotage and attacks on Russian territory have multiplied in recent months. Rather rare in Moscow and its region, which more than 500 kilometers separate from Ukraine, the strikes are numerous in the border areas. Even if, most of the time, kyiv denies any responsibility. Le Figaro takes stock.
From the first months of the war, sabotage campaigns were reported inside Russian territory. In May 2022, a military research institute in Tver, northwest of Moscow, was set on fire. 1100 kilometers to the east, a fire broke out the same month in an ammunition factory in Perm, as well as two fuel depots in Bryansk, near Belarus.
Initially punctual, drone attacks, attacks and “sabotage” operations have particularly multiplied in recent weeks in the border regions with Ukraine. In March, the incursion of around twenty armed men into the Bryansk region caused a shock on the Russian side, revealing the fragility of the borders. According to the Russian authorities, two civilians were then killed and an 11-year-old child injured by these “saboteurs” who opened fire on a car in a village. kyiv had denied any involvement.
In the Belgorod oblast, also bordering Ukraine, incidents are increasing. Since February, its fuel depots have been repeatedly targeted by Ukrainian artillery. Again on May 22, the Russian authorities announced that a Ukrainian “sabotage” group had entered the region. The attack, stopped by the dispatch of border guards, the Rosgvardia (national guard) and the FSB (security services), caused several injuries.
Other drone attacks have been reported on various infrastructures such as pipelines or oil pumping stations. These are increasingly engaged in Russian territory. On May 27, two drones hit two oil pipeline facilities in the Tver region, northwest of Moscow as well as in Pskov in the west of the country, according to local media and the local governor. Already on December 5, 2022, drones had destroyed several Russian aircraft at the Engels 2 air base, located in the Saratov oblast, more than 900 km from the Ukrainian border.
Monday, May 22, fighters from Ukraine carried out the largest armed offensive on Russian territory since the start of the war. Two armed groups, the Svoboda Rossii (“Freedom of Russia”) Legion and the Russian Volunteer Corps (RDK), launched an attack in Belgorod Oblast. Immediately repelled, the incursion nevertheless prompted Moscow to decree an “anti-terrorist” regime in the region, a first since the start of the offensive in Ukraine.
The balance sheet of the operation remains difficult to establish. Russia claimed to have killed more than 70 “Ukrainian nationalists” and destroyed four armored vehicles and five pick-ups. “Those who remained were pushed back into Ukrainian territory, where we continued to target them until their complete elimination,” the Russian Defense Ministry said. The attackers claim for their part to have had to deplore only a few injuries.
This incursion came after several others, less spectacular, already carried out by units from Ukraine in the regions of Belgorod and Briansk. In December 2022, four soldiers from the Ukrainian Bratstvo battalion were killed during such an infiltration. On March 2 and April 6, the RDK group also set foot on Russian territory for a few hours. The second time, Denis Kapustine clarified that he was inspired by the flight over Vienna imagined by the Italian poet Gabriele d’Annunzio, on August 9, 1918, by distributing to the population leaflets on which he had had written: “Inhabitants of Briansk, we could have sent you bombs”.
The most symbolic attack within Russian territory, however, remains the one that hit Moscow on the night of Tuesday May 2 to Wednesday May 3. Unverified videos circulating on social media showed the Kremlin dome, topped with a Russian flag, ignite for a short explosion.
The Russians, who claimed to have intercepted two drones, accuse kyiv of wanting to assassinate Vladimir Putin. President Volodymyr Zelensky has denied any responsibility for this event, which occurred just days before the great annual Russian military parade on May 9. A month after the events, the mystery still hovers over its exact unfolding and the objective sought. Symbolic act from Kyiv? Strategy of the “false flag” on the side of Moscow, in order to pass for victim and mobilize more the Russian population around the war? French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna herself spoke of “a strange” and “mysterious episode”.
The new attack on May 30 further increases the pressure on Russian power. Moscow Region Governor Andrei Vorobyov called on Muscovites to “keep their cool” as some districts in the region “could hear the sound of explosions” from the air defense. The noise of war now resounds within the capital.
