It has been rare for Moscow to be targeted by drones during Russia's invasion of Ukraine – but the capital has been told by one politician to prepare for "the new reality" of such attacks.
Russian politicians say that among the areas hit was the Rublyovka suburb, where Russian President Vladimir Putin has an official residence, as well as numerous other members of Russia's political and business elite.
Alexander Khinshtein, a prominent member of Russia's parliament from the ruling United Russia bloc, said three drones had been downed over three Rublyovka villages, one of which is located just 10 minutes' drive from Mr Putin's residence at Novo-Ogaryovo. Russia's Investigative Committee said that that drones had been downed over the Odintsovsky district, which includes Rublyovka.
Rublyovka contains a collection of gated communities in the forests west of Moscow – it once boasted some of the world's highest property prices. Beyond Mr Putin, former president Dmitry Medvedev and the current prime minister, Mikhail Mishustin, have been reported to own homes in Rublyovka.
Residents across Moscow said they heard loud bangs followed by the smell of petrol. Some filmed a drone being shot down and a plume of smoke rising over the Moscow skyline. “It’s flying right over our house!” yelled one man as he filmed a video of a drone gliding over suburban Moscow.
A number of politicians used the strikes to attack the Russian Defence Ministry for allowing the drones to enter the capital's airspace and said that Moscow needed to increase its own strikes on Kyiv, which has been hit with a barrage of drones and missiles for three nights in a row.
One Russian politician, Maxim Ivanov, claimed the Moscow drone strikes were the most serious assault on the capital since the Nazis, saying no citizen could now avoid "the new reality". "You will either defeat the enemy as a single fist with our Motherland, or the indelible shame of cowardice, collaboration and betrayal will engulf your family," he said.
That approach was at odds with the one taken by Andrei Vorobyov, the governor of the Moscow region, who clearly sought to calm residents who would have been used to the war being far from their door. “This morning, residents of some districts of the Moscow region could hear the sounds of explosions – those were our air defences at work,” he said in a social media post.
Yevgeny Prigozhin, the head of the Wagner mercenary group who have been at the centre of some of the fiercest fighting of the invasion in eastern Ukraine hit out at the political elites in Rublyovka as being out of touch with the war on the ground and insufficiently committed to the war. Mr Prigozhin has been a constant thorn in the side of the Russian Defence Ministry and the country's military chiefs, repeatedly using his forces' position at the centre of the symbolic battle for the eastern city of Bakhmut to complain about the lack of ammunition and support for his troops – and generally how many mistakes he believes officials are making around strategy.
In an expletive-filled statement posted on Telegram by his press service, Mr Prigozhin blamed the drone strikes on senior military officials living in the suburb. "Why the f*** are you allowing these drones to fly to Moscow? Who gives a s*** that they are flying to your homes on Rublyovka! Let your houses burn," he said.
