Russian air defences down eight drones en route to Moscow, mayor says

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MOSCOW (Reuters) -Russian air defences shot down eight drones en route to Moscow on Monday, the city’s mayor said, a day after a Ukrainian strike on a power and heat station cut off heating for thousands outside the Russian capital.

The Russian Defence Ministry earlier said 10 Ukrainian drones had been downed across three Russian regions on Monday, including Moscow, Kaluga and Bryansk, which borders Ukraine.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said in a statement that emergency services were working at the scene of the downed drones.

Ukraine’s drone strike on Sunday on the Shatura Power Station, about 120 km (75 miles) east of Moscow, forced authorities to switch on backup power and deploy mobile heating systems to the town of some 33,000 people, where temperatures hovered around freezing.

In recent weeks and months, there have been repeated power and heat outages in parts of Ukraine due to Russian attacks in the full-scale war that erupted in February 2022.

Ukraine has also hit some power and heating installations in Ukrainian regions controlled by Russian forces and in Russian regions neighbouring Ukraine.

But Kyiv has thus far not inflicted major damage on electricity and heat stations serving Moscow and the surrounding region, which has a population of more than 22 million.

(Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Lucy Papachristou; editing by Andrew Osborn and Mark Heinrich)