Ukraine launched one of its biggest drone attacks on Moscow and the surrounding region on Sunday, killing two people and hitting an oil refinery in the Russian capital as Russia entered the final day of its parliamentary elections.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said Russia had shot down more than 1,600 drones since Saturday, including 450 that were heading towards Moscow.
Several drones reached the premises of the Moscow oil refinery, while another struck an apartment building, Sobyanin said. He added that there were no casualties in the city.
“The unprecedented attack was clearly planned with the aim of disrupting the elections,” Sobyanin said. “The adversary failed to achieve this.”
Reuters witnesses heard explosions in Moscow and saw plumes of smoke rising from the site of the refinery. The extent of damage to the facility was not immediately known.
In the wider Moscow region, two people were killed in separate incidents, according to local authorities. Moscow Region Governor Andrei Vorobyov said 400 people, including 70 children, were evacuated from a 21-storey apartment block in the Ramenskoye district after it was damaged.
A number of homes were also damaged in the region, according to Vorobyov.
The attack came as Russians voted on Sunday, the final day of a three-day parliamentary election that began on Friday. The vote is the first parliamentary election since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Russian authorities accused Ukraine of attempting to disrupt the election, although Kyiv had not immediately commented on the latest attacks.
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The drone strikes also came despite US President Donald Trump saying earlier in the week that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to stop attacking each other’s energy infrastructure. However, the two countries have continued strikes on energy facilities.
Ukraine has increasingly targeted Russian energy infrastructure during the war, while Russia has continued attacks against Ukrainian infrastructure. The strikes on Russian oil facilities have disrupted part of the country’s refining capacity and contributed to fuel shortages and higher prices in some regions, according to Reuters.
The Moscow refinery has been targeted several times during the conflict. Sunday’s attack highlights the continuing reach of the war beyond the main front lines, with energy facilities remaining important targets.
Ukraine has not claimed responsibility for the latest strikes, and independent verification of some of the Russian authorities’ claims remains difficult because of the ongoing war. Both Moscow and Kyiv have said they do not deliberately target civilians.
The latest attack adds to the continuing exchanges of long-range drone strikes between Russia and Ukraine, as diplomatic efforts to halt the conflict have yet to produce a broader ceasefire.
