Construction work at the Kremlin unearthed an undetonated World War II bomb Thursday, Russian media said. The bomb was safely defused and taken away from the Kremlin, Bloomberg reports. "As you know, the Kremlin was bombed in 1941-1942," an official said. That was during the Battle for Moscow, when German forces neared the city after the invasion of the Soviet Union. A government newspaper said that 200 bombs were dropped on the Kremlin in eight raids during the war, killing 100 people. The roof of one of the palaces was damaged, per Radio Free Europe.
The construction work was being done to shore up the ground soil in the Kremlin's Tainitsky Garden, near the Moscow River. Built between the 14th and 17th centuries, the Kremlin has been an official residence and offices of the nation's leaders since the days of the czars. A spokesman said Russian President Vladimir Putin's schedule Thursday was not disrupted by the bomb's discovery. Unexploded bombs from World War II regularly are found in Germany, as well. (One leftover bomb caused damage recently.)