Drone brought down on Moscow Expocentre

A drone hit Moscow’s Expocentre complex on 18 August, 4am Moscow Time.

Russian air defences said they had shot down a Ukrainian drone with the fragments falling on the Expocentre, damaging a wall. The Defence Ministry said in a statement that there were no injuries to people, although Moscow’s major airports suspended air traffic briefly.

A Moscow resident named Maria told Metro: “We live in the tower opposite, on the 68th floor. We heard a bang and saw a flash. At first we thought it had hit the Federation Tower [skyscraper], but it turned out to be the Expocentre. We could see a column of smoke from our windows."

The Expocentre is around 4.5km away from the Kremlin and The Third Russian Meeting of Electricians had opened at the venue on 17 August.

On 30 and 31 July, two separate drones hit a skyscraper just a few hundred metres from the Expocentre, which has 165,000sqm of exhibition space.