Drones and strikes: the security picture on 2 August 2023

What did the security picture look like on 2 August 2023? Reports from that day and the preceding days pointed to strikes in both directions, with civilian and economic targets at the centre.

On 2 August 2023, a Russian drone strike hit Izmail in Odesa Oblast, damaging administrative buildings and grain storage facilities. The attack was part of Russian strikes against Ukrainian infrastructure, and it struck facilities tied to grain storage.

Pressure inside Russia

On 1 August 2023, Russia said it had destroyed three drones near Moscow. One of them damaged the 21st floor of the IQ-quarter mixed-use complex, which hosts offices for the Ministry of Economic Development. Vnukovo International Airport temporarily closed for the second time in two days.

The disruption reached beyond Russia's borders. Turkmenistan Airlines announced on 1 August 2023 that it would temporarily suspend flights from Ashgabat to Moscow following the drone attacks, sending them instead to Kazan, in Tatarstan. The reroute showed how the incidents near the capital were affecting foreign carriers' decisions.

Civilian toll

The days before had brought heavy civilian losses in Ukraine. On 31 July 2023, a Russian ballistic missile strike on an apartment complex and a university building in Kryvyi Rih, Dnipropetrovsk Oblast, killed at least six civilians and injured 75 others.

What the sequence shows

Taken together, the reports describe a pattern across these days: missile and drone strikes on Ukrainian cities and grain facilities, and drone incidents in the Moscow area that closed an airport and prompted one foreign airline to change its route. The reports do not show any single decisive shift on 2 August 2023. They do show that both civilian infrastructure in Ukraine and air traffic in Russia were affected within a few days of one another.