On Monday, June 22, Russian authorities briefly closed the four main airports in the capital Moscow and disrupted air traffic after intercepting and destroying an intense and massive military wave of long-range drones launched by Ukrainian forces towards the heart of the Russian capital and its geographical surroundings.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin announced in an official statement that air defense and ground defense systems succeeded in destroying 59 suicide drones that were heading directly towards the capital's vital structures, stressing that civil aviation authorities later reopened the airspace and airports to regular flight traffic after the immediate threat that imposed a temporary suspension of the air program was gone.
The Russian Ministry of Defense confirmed in its daily military update that its armed forces were able to shoot down and intercept 407 Ukrainian drones over various Russian areas, including the airspace of the capital Moscow, multiple geographical regions, in addition to the maritime airspace over the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea, noting that this escalation comes at a time when Kyiv has intensified the use of its air attacks in response to the continuous Russian strikes on its cities.
Human Casualties in Crimea
Russia's Crimea has witnessed parallel attacks that have resulted in casualties and severe logistical damage.
The head of the island's administration, Sergei Aksyonov, announced that 4 people were killed and 28 others were injured in a Ukrainian attack on the strategic Kerch region, prompting local authorities to suspend fuel sales at several stations, coinciding with the death of a fifth person following a strike on a naval ferry linking the peninsula to Russian territory.
In the Donetsk People's Republic, the authorities announced that Ukrainian forces launched 11 artillery and air attacks in the past 24 hours, killing two people and wounding 6 others, including two children.
Zelenskyy: Details of Ukrainian offensive
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, for his part, revealed the details of these military operations, explaining that Ukrainian forces carried out a series of precision, long-range strikes targeting Russia's military logistics infrastructure and oil facilities.
Zelenskyy explained that the strikes hit vital sites on both sides of the Crimean Bridge, including naval oil transport facilities in the Krasnodar region, an oil depot in Kerch, as well as hitting four radar stations belonging to Russia's advanced air defense systems "S-400" and destroying two Pantsir missile defense systems.
In this context, recent satellite images obtained by the open source unit of the Al Jazeera media network showed clear traces of destruction and severe structural damage to a bioenergy facility inside the capital, Moscow, which was recently targeted by Ukraine, in addition to the damage to one of its largest commercial complexes, following the large-scale Ukrainian attack that took place on June 18.
A visual comparison based on the latest satellite imagery taken by the American company "Planet" on June 20 showed charcoal and clear damage to a number of fuel tanks located in the eastern part of the Moscow oil refinery complex in the Kabotnya area southeast of the capital, a facility whose damage is so significant as it was previously targeted as part of a Ukrainian campaign to cripple Russian military funding.
The same space providers spotted structural damage at the Sadovod commercial complex near the refinery, which is classified as one of the largest markets and commercial centers in Moscow, where dark spots appeared from the cracking of the roof of the concrete structure of the complex with light plumes of smoke continuing for the third day in a row.
These satellite images matched the story of the Moscow municipality, which admitted that the wreckage of a drone that was intercepted in the vicinity of the center, claiming minor material damage without human casualties, while Moscow accuses Kyiv of targeting civilian facilities.
Ballistic strikes inside Ukraine
On the other hand, the Ukrainian authorities announced that a boy was seriously injured as a result of a Russian drone attack that targeted the city of Hlokhiv in the northeastern Sumy region of the country.
The head of the region's military administration, Oleh Hryhorov, said that the Russian attack severely damaged a 5-story apartment building and a group of private houses, and led to a large fire in the residential area.
The Ukrainian military administration in Odessa, in the south of the country, reported that Russian forces launched a violent missile strike using an Iskander ballistic missile, targeting a vital agricultural facility, killing one person and injuring 3 others, completely destroying a warehouse and setting fire to vehicles and fuel tanks, causing a widespread power outage in the city center following an emergency at the thermal power plant.
Russia accuses UN of bias
The director of the Department of International Organizations at the Russian Foreign Ministry, Kirill Logvinov, criticized the diplomatic performance of the United Nations, stressing that his country is in regular contact with international officials on what he described as the "bias of the United Nations Secretariat" in the Ukraine crisis.
The Russian official explained that Russian reservations are not being heard. The Russian official called on the next secretary-general of the United Nations to address the structural imbalance within the General Secretariat, and to end Western domination of leadership positions to ensure the restoration of the organization's neutrality and credibility in international mediation.
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