MOSCOW, Aug 21, 2024 (BSS/AFP) - Russian air defences shot down 10 Ukrainian drones targeting Moscow, the city's mayor said early Wednesday.

"Moscow's layered defence against enemy UAVs that was created has allowed us to successfully repel all attacks," mayor Sergei Sobyanin said in a Telegram post.

"This is one of the largest attempts to attack Moscow with drones ever," he said, adding Russian air defences shot down 10 drones.

Sobyanin said in an earlier post that no damage or casualties had been reported.

Drone attacks on Moscow are rare, with Russia saying in May it had downed a drone outside the capital, forcing restrictions to be imposed at two major airports in the city for under an hour.

Kyiv has repeatedly targeted oil and gas facilities in Russia since the conflict began in 2022, some hundreds of kilometres from its borders, in what it has called "fair" retaliation for attacks on its energy infrastructure.

Ukrainian drones attacked an oil storage facility in Russia's southern Rostov region on Sunday, sparking a large fire, the local governor said.

The blaze in the city of Proletarsk was still raging on Tuesday, with around 500 Russian firefighters working to put it out.

Earlier this month, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky praised his forces for hitting oil facilities in Russia, saying the attacks would help bring a "just end" to the conflict.

The drone attacks come as Ukraine mounts an unprecedented cross-border assault into Russia's Kursk region, where it claims to control more than 80 settlements.