INSUBCONTINENT EXCLUSIVE:
Russia said on Sunday it had downed Ukrainian drones targeting Moscow and the Crimea peninsula in attacks that damaged two office towers in
the capital and briefly shut an international airport.One drone targeting Moscow was shot down on the city's outskirts and two others were
"suppressed by electronic warfare" and smashed into an office complex early on Sunday, the Russian Defense Ministry said, adding that there
were no injuries.Moscow and its environs, lying about 500 kilometers (310 miles) from the Ukrainian border, had rarely been targeted during
the conflict in Ukraine until several drone attacks this year.Following the attacks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that
this is an inevitable, natural and absolutely fair process," Zelensky said on a visit to the western city of Ivano-Frankivsk.Russia has been
blamed on Kyiv.Russia's Defense Ministry denounced an "attempted terrorist attack" which Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said would have
been "impossible without the help afforded the Kyiv regime by the United States and its NATO allies."The Defense Ministry said on Telegram:
"On the morning of July 30, the Kyiv regime's attempted terrorist attack with unmanned aerial vehicles on objects in the city of Moscow
was thwarted."One Ukrainian UAV was destroyed in the air by air defence systems over the territory of the Odintsovo district of Moscow
region."Two more drones were suppressed by electronic warfare and, having lost control, crashed on the territory of Moscow-City's
non-residential building complex."Moscow-City is a commercial development in the west of the capital.Mayor Sergei Sobyanin posted on
Telegram that the "facades of two city office towers were slightly damaged" but added there were no victims.Several windows had been blown
out on the corner of the buildings, AFP photos showed, with mangled steel beams visible and documents strewn on the ground below.Police
officers had cordoned off the area.The TASS state news agency reported the capital's Vnukovo airport was "closed for departures and
arrivals, flights are redirected to other airports" but operations appeared to have returned to normal inside an hour.Earlier this month, a
volley of drone attacks briefly disrupted air traffic at the same airport.The Defense Ministry also said on Sunday that 25 Ukrainian drones
were destroyed by air defense fire in an overnight attack on Crimea, a peninsula Moscow annexed in 2014."Another nine Ukrainian drones were
suppressed by means of electronic warfare and, without reaching the target, crashed into the Black Sea," the ministry said, adding that
there were no victims.Crimea has been targeted by Kyiv throughout Moscow's Ukraine offensive but has come under more intense, increased
counteroffensive to claw back territory captured by Russia since large-scale hostilities erupted in February 2022.On Friday, Russia said it
had intercepted two missiles over its southern Rostov region bordering Ukraine, with at least 16 people wounded by debris falling on the
city of Taganrog.Shortly after, it said it had downed a second S-200 missile near the city of Azov, with debris falling in an unpopulated
area.Across the border, a Russian strike killed two people in the southern city of Zaporizhzhia on Saturday, authorities there said.Two
civilians were also killed in a missile attack Saturday on the northeastern city of Sumy, the municipal city council said, with 20 more
destroyed in an explosion at about 8:00 p.m
(17:00 GMT).In early July, a Russian drone attack hit an apartment building in the same city, killing three and wounding 21.
