DEEP DIVE — Ukraine fired a wave of drones and missiles at Moscow and several other Russian regions late Monday, in one of its heaviest attacks against Russia and the latest Ukrainian effort to bring the conflict to Russian territory. Russian officials said more than 140 drones were shot down, but some clearly got through; a woman was killed near Moscow and eight others were wounded in the strikes. Some missiles exploded on airport runways and set fuel depots on fire, in a middle-of-the-night reminder to Russian civilians that – much as their leader, Vladimir Putin, seeks to reassure them Ukraine is just a small troublespot, a target of what he calls a “special military operation – their nation is at war.
It was the second major drone attack against Russia in ten days. On September 1, the Russian military said it had intercepted 158 drones in a dozen regions of the country. Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov called that attack “terrorism,” and on Tuesday he said of the latest Ukrainian strikes, “There is no way that night time strikes on residential neighborhoods can be associated with military action.”
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