Five drones were shot down over three Russian regions overnight, with one targeting the capital, officials said Thursday. There were reports of no casualties.

Meanwhile, Russia launched a fourth day of air attacks on the Ukrainian port city of Izmail, located on the Danube river. Oleh Kiper, regional Governor of Odesa, said infrastructure was damaged in the attack, including grain silos, and one person was injured.

The attack came one day after a Russian missile struck a busy market in the eastern city of Kostiantynivka in Donetsk, killing 17 and wounding at least 32. The attack overshadowed a two-day visit by U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, aimed at assessing Ukraine’s 3-month-old counteroffensive and signaling continued U.S. support for the fight.

One drone targeted Moscow, but was shot down southeast of the city without causing any damage or injuries, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said.

Two more drones were shot down over the southern region of Rostov, which borders Ukraine, said regional Governor Vasily Golubev. The debris fell in the center of Rostov-on-Don, the region’s capital, damaging several cars and shattering windows in three buildings, Golubev said. One person sought medical assistance.

Two other drones were shot down over the Bryansk region, which also borders Ukraine, Governor Alexander Bogomaz reported. Drone debris damaged a railway station and several cars, he said.

Russia’s Defense Ministry blamed the attacks on Ukraine. Ukraine usually does not take credit for strikes inside Russia.

Drone attacks on Crimea and Russian regions have become increasingly common in recent months. Fuel depots and air fields have been hit in drone attacks that Russian officials blamed on Kyiv. In recent weeks drones have repeatedly targeted Moscow, with some hitting buildings in the city center, while others being shot down on the outskirts of the city.

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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — A rare drone attack jolted Moscow early Tuesday, causing only light damage but forcing evacuations as residential buildings were struck in the Russian capital for the first time in the war against Ukraine. The Kremlin, meanwhile, pursued its relentless bombardment of Kyiv with a third assault on the city in 24 hours.

The Russian Defense Ministry said five drones were shot down in Moscow and the systems of three others were jammed, causing them to veer off course. President Vladimir Putin called it a “terrorist” act by Kyiv.

The attack, while causing only what Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said was “insignificant damage” to several buildings, brought the war home to civilians in Russia’s capital. Two people received treatment for unspecified injuries but did not need hospitalization, Sobyanin said, adding that residents of two high-rise buildings damaged in the attack were evacuated.

Andrei Vorobyov, governor of the wider Moscow region, said some of the drones were “shot down on the approach to Moscow.”

Ukraine made no direct comment on the attack, which would be one of its deepest and most daring strikes into Russia since the Kremlin launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine more than 15 months ago.

Putin said Moscow’s air defense “worked in a satisfactory way,” but added it was “clear what we need to do to plug the gaps” in the system.

“The Kyiv regime … attempts to intimidate Russia, Russian citizens and strikes at civilian buildings,” he said during a public event. “It is, of course, a clear indication of terrorist activity.”

Putin charged that Ukraine launched Tuesday’s attack in response to Russia striking Ukraine’s military intelligence headquarters in Kyiv over the weekend. But Andrii Cherniak, a Ukrainian intelligence representative, said the Kremlin’s forces failed to hit the building because its missiles were shot down.

Asked by The Associated Press whether there was high-level concern that the invasion of Ukraine was endangering Russian civilians, Putin’s spokesman Dmitry Peskov said only that attacks on Russia reinforced the need to prosecute what the Kremlin calls the “special military operation.”

Tatiana Stanovaya of the Carnegie Endowment said the Kremlin’s policy is to play down the attacks, reflecting Putin’s belief voiced more than once that the Russian people were patient enough to “understand everything and endure everything.”

Moscow residents reported hearing explosions before dawn. At one site of a crashed drone in Moscow southwest, police fenced off an area near a residential building and put the drone debris in a cardboard box before carrying it away.

At another site, apartment windows were shattered and there were scorch marks on the building’s front.

It was the second reported strike on Moscow since May 3, when Russian authorities said two drones targeted the Kremlin in what they portrayed as an attempt on Putin’s life. Ukraine denied it was behind that attack.

Last week, the Russian border region of Belgorod was the target of one of the most serious cross-border raids since the war began, with two far-right pro-Ukrainian paramilitary groups claiming responsibility. Belgorod Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov said a man was killed and two others were seriously wounded Tuesday by the Ukrainian shelling of a building hosting temporarily displaced residents of the region.

Officials in the southern Russian city of Krasnodar near annexed Crimea said two drones struck there on Friday, damaging residential buildings.

Other drones have reportedly flown deep into Russia multiple times. In December, Moscow claimed it had shot down drones that targeted military air bases in the Saratov and Ryazan regions in western Russia.

Ukrainian military analysts, though unable to confirm Kyiv had launched the drones against Moscow, said the attack may have involved UJ-22 drones, which are produced in Ukraine and have a maximum range of about 1,000 kilometers (620 miles).

Analyst Oleh Zhdanov said some UJ-22s are capable of reaching “Moscow and beyond,” although he noted they can fly only half as far and carry half the payload of the Iranian-made Shahed drones used in the war by Russia.

Even so, Zhdanov told AP that “the myth has been dispelled” of the Russian capital’s invulnerability.

Since February, when a UJ-22 crashed 100 kilometers (60 miles) from Moscow, Ukrainian drones have repeatedly approached the Russian capital.

White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said Tuesday the U.S. was still gathering information about the drone strike but reiterated that “as a general matter” the U.S. administration does not support Ukraine using American weaponry in Russian territory.

“We do not support the use of U.S.-made equipment being used for attacks inside of Russia,” she said. ”We’ve been very clear about that, and we’ll continue to do that. And we have been clear not just publicly but privately clear with the Ukrainians.”

She declined to comment on whether administration officials have spoken to Ukraine officials about the Moscow incident.

Jean-Pierre also noted that Russia on Tuesday launched its 17th round of airstrikes on the capital of Kyiv this month, noting that “Russia started this unprovoked aggression, this unprovoked war against Ukraine.”

A U.S. defense official said the drone strikes would not not affect the weapons aid packages the U.S. is providing Ukraine to include drone ammunition. The official said the U.S. has committed to supporting Ukraine in its effort to defend the country and Ukraine had committed to not using the systems inside Russia, so the aid would likely continue unchanged. The official spoke on the condition of anonymity to discuss sensitive matters.

Ukrainian officials said Tuesday’s pre-dawn air raid on Kyiv killed at least one person, wounded 11 others and sent residents scrambling into shelters again.

At least 20 Shahed drones were destroyed by air defense forces in Kyiv in the latest attack. Overall, Ukraine shot down 29 of 31 drones, mostly in the Kyiv area, the air force said.

Before daylight, buzzing drones could be heard in the city, followed by loud explosions as they were taken down by air defense systems.

The heavy destruction in Kyiv contrasted with what was seen in Moscow. In the Ukrainian capital, burned-out cars, glass and debris littered the street outside a building where apartments were wrecked; in Moscow, only a few broken windows and scorched outer walls were evident, with repairs and repainting being done quickly to affected buildings.

A woman in Kyiv’s Holosiiv district was killed when she went onto her balcony “to look at drones being shot down,” Mayor Vitali Klitschko said in a Telegram post.

A high-rise in the same district caught fire after being hit by debris either from drones or interceptor missiles. The building’s upper two floors were destroyed, and people were feared buried in the rubble, the Kyiv Military Administration said. More than 20 people were evacuated.

Resident Valeriya Oreshko told AP that even though the immediate threat was over, the attacks had everyone on edge.

“You are happy that you are alive, but think about what will happen next,” the 39-year-old said.

A resident who gave only her first name, Oksana, said the whole building shook when it was hit, advising others: “Go to shelters, because you really do not know where (the drone) will fly.”

___

Associated Press writers Vasilisa Stepanenko in Kyiv, Ukraine; David Rising in Bangkok; Tara Copp in Washington and Yuras Karmanau in Tallinn, Estonia, contributed. Kozlowska reported from Tallinn.

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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukrainian forces fired rockets at a facility in the eastern Donetsk region where Russian soldiers were stationed, killing 63 of them, Russia’s defense ministry said Monday, in one of the deadliest attacks on the Kremlin’s forces since the war began more than 10 months ago.

Ukrainian forces fired six rockets from a HIMARS launch system and two of them were shot down, a defense ministry statement said. It did not say when the strike happened.

The strike, using a U.S.-supplied precision weapon that has proven critical in enabling Ukrainian forces to hit key targets, delivered a new setback for Russia which in recent months has reeled from a Ukrainian counteroffensive.

According to the governor of Russia’s Samara region, Dmitry Azarov, an unspecified number of residents of the region were among those killed and wounded by the strike on the town of Makiivka.

Russian military bloggers, whose information has largely been reliable during the war, said ammunition stored close to the facility had exploded in the attack and contributed to the high number of casualties.

Expressing anger at the losses, Daniil Bezsonov, an official with the Russian-appointed administration in Russian-occupied Donetsk, called for the punishment of military officers who ordered a large number of troops to be stationed at the facility.

The Ukrainian military appeared to acknowledge the attack Monday, with the General Staff confirming that Makiivka was hit on Dec. 31, and saying 10 Russian military vehicles were destroyed or damaged. It added that Russian personnel losses were still being clarified.

In a claim that could not be independently verified, the Strategic Communications Directorate of Ukraine’s Armed Forces had maintained Sunday that some 400 mobilized Russian soldiers were killed in a vocational school building in Makiivka and about 300 more were wounded. The Russian statement said the strike occurred “in the area of Makiivka” and didn’t mention the vocational school.

Meanwhile, Russia deployed multiple exploding drones in another nighttime attack on Ukraine, officials said Monday, as the Kremlin signaled no letup in its strategy of using bombardments to target the country’s energy infrastructure and wear down Ukrainian resistance to its invasion.

The barrage was the latest in a series of relentless year-end attacks, including one that killed three civilians on New Year’s Eve.

On Monday, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said that 40 drones “headed for Kyiv” overnight. All of them were destroyed, according to air defense forces.

Klitschko said 22 drones were destroyed over Kyiv, three in the outlying Kyiv region and 15 over neighboring provinces.

Energy infrastructure facilities were damaged as the result of the attack and an explosion occurred in one city district, the mayor said. It wasn’t immediately clear whether that was caused by drones or other munitions. A wounded 19-year-old man was hospitalized, Klitschko added, and emergency power outages were underway in the capital.

In the outlying Kyiv region a “critical infrastructure object” and residential buildings were hit, Gov. Oleksiy Kuleba said.

Russia has carried out airstrikes on Ukrainian power and water supplies almost weekly since October.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused Russia of “energy terrorism” as the aerial bombardments have left many people without heat amid freezing temperatures. Ukrainian officials say Moscow is “weaponizing winter” in its effort to demoralize the Ukrainian resistance.

Ukraine is using sophisticated Western-supplied weapons to help shoot down Russia’s missiles and drones, as well as send artillery fire into Russian-held areas of the country.

Moscow’s full-scale invasion on Feb. 24 has gone awry, putting pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin as his ground forces struggle to hold ground and advance. He said in his New Year’s address to the nation that 2022 was “a year of difficult, necessary decisions.”

Putin insists he had no choice but to send troops into Ukraine because it threatened Russia’s security — an assertion condemned by the West, which says Moscow bears full responsibility for the war.

Russia is currently observing public holidays through Jan. 8.

Drones, missiles and artillery shells launched by Russian forces also struck areas across Ukraine.

Five people were wounded in the Monday morning shelling of a Ukraine-controlled area of the southern Kherson region, its Ukrainian Gov. Yaroslav Yanushevich said on Telegram.

The Russian forces attacked the city of Beryslav, the official said, firing at a local market, likely from a tank. Three of the wounded are in serious condition and are being evacuated to Kherson, Yanushevich said.

Seven drones were shot down over the southern Mykolaiv region, according to Gov. Vitali Kim, and three more were shot down in the southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region, Gov. Valentyn Reznichenko said.

In the Dnipropetrovsk region, a missile was also destroyed, according to Reznichenko. He said that energy infrastructure in the region was being targeted.

Ukraine’s Air Force Command reported Monday that 39 Iranian-made exploding Shahed drones were shot down overnight, as well as two Russian-made Orlan drones and a X-59 missile.

“We are staying strong,” the Ukrainian defense ministry tweeted.

A blistering New Year’s Eve assault killed at least four civilians across the country, Ukrainian authorities reported, and wounded dozens. The fourth victim, a 46-year-old resident of Kyiv, died in a hospital on Monday morning, Klitschko said.

Multiple blasts rocked the capital and other areas of Ukraine on Saturday and through the night. The strikes came 36 hours after widespread missile attacks Russia launched Thursday to damage energy infrastructure facilities, and the unusually quick follow-up alarmed Ukrainian officials.

In Russia, a Ukrainian drone hit an energy facility in the Bryansk region that borders with Ukraine, Bryansk regional governor Alexander Bogomaz reported on Monday morning. A village was left without power as a result, he said.

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KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Kremlin-installed officials in occupied southern Ukraine celebrated Russia Day on Sunday and began issuing Russian passports to residents in one city who requested them, as Moscow sought to solidify its rule over captured parts of the country.

At one of the central squares in the city of Kherson, Russian bands played a concert to celebrate Russia Day, the holiday that marks Russia’s emergence as a sovereign state after the collapse of the Soviet Union, according to Russia’s state news agency RIA Novosti.

In the neighboring Zaporizhzhia region, Moscow-installed officials raised a Russian flag in Melitopol’s city center.

Ukrainian media reported that few, if any, local residents attended the Russia Day festivities in the two cities.

Russia Day was also celebrated in other occupied parts of Ukraine, including the ravaged southern port of Mariupol, where a new city sign painted in the colors of the Russian flag was unveiled on the outskirts and Russian flags were flown on a highway leading into the city.

Also, the Russia-aligned administration in Melitopol started handing out Russian passports to those who applied for Russian citizenship. RIA Novosti posted video of a Moscow-backed official congratulating new Russian citizens and telling them: “Russia will not go anywhere. We are here for good.”

President Vladimir Putin earlier this year issued a decree fast-tracking Russian citizenship for residents of the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions. In captured cities in the south and east, Moscow has also introduced the ruble as official currency, aired Russian news broadcasts and taken steps to introduce a Russian school curriculum.

The Kremlin’s administrators in the Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions have voiced plans to incorporate the areas into Russia, despite protests and signs of an insurgency among local residents.

Russian-installed officials Sunday in Melitopol reported an explosion in a garbage bin near the city’s police headquarters and said two residents were injured.

Another blast was reported at an electrical substation in the city of Berdyansk, which is also under Russian control. The Kremlin-backed administration pronounced it a terrorist attack, and officials said electricity was shut down in parts of the city.

On the battlefield, Russia said it is used missiles to destroy a large depot in western Ukraine that contained anti-tank and air-defense weapons supplied to Kyiv by the U.S. and European countries. It said the attack took place near the city of Chortkiv in the Ternopil region.

Ternopil Gov. Volodymyr Trush said four Russian missiles damaged a military installation and four residential buildings in Chortkiv. More than 20 people were wounded, including a 12-year-old girl, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said.

“This strike had no tactical or strategic sense, just like the absolute majority of other Russian strikes. It is terror, just terror,” he said in a video address.

In light of the strike, Zelenskyy made another plea for modern missile defense systems from the U.S. and other Western countries, saying, “These are lives that could have been saved, tragedies that could have been prevented if Ukraine had been listened to.”

Also, heavy fighting continued for control of Sievierodonetsk, an eastern city in Luhansk province with a prewar population of 100,000 that has emerged as central to Russia’s campaign to capture the Donbas, Ukraine’s industrial heartland.

Russian forces shelled a Sievierodonetsk chemical plant where up to 500 civilians, 40 of them children, were holed up, Luhansk Gov. Serhii Haidai said.

An official with the pro-Moscow, self-proclaimed Luhansk People’s Republic, Rodion Miroshnik, said 300 to 400 Ukrainian troops also remained inside the plant. He said that efforts were underway to evacuate the civilians.

Leonid Pasechnik, head of the Luhansk People’s Republic, said the Ukrainians making their stand in Sievierodonetsk should save themselves the trouble.

“If I were them, I would already make a decision” to surrender, he said. “We will achieve our goal in any case.”

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