Ukraine launched the largest drone attack Russia has faced since the war began, attacking the city’s main oil refinery and residential buildings on Sunday.
The attack involved more than 1,600 drones, 450 aimed at Moscow, and coincided with the final day of Russian parliamentary elections.
According to Governor Andrey Vorobiev, at least three people were killed and 20 injured in the Moscow region.
Also, nine people were injured in Russia’s southern Belgorod region. The Russian Defence Ministry vowed to “intensify” retaliatory strikes.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that three key units of the struck oil refinery were damaged. It supplies more than a third of the Moscow region’s oil. He called it “an attempt to disrupt” Russia’s parliamentary election.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said that our long-range responses had a very significant impact in the Moscow region last night.
“The facilities targeted were bringing in billions of dollars that sustain the war machine,” He added.
Kyiv has been bombarded with aerial attacks for almost a month. Zelensky said that Russia launched more than 2,000 attack drones, 1,700 aerial bombs, and 19 missiles of various types against Ukraine this week.
Russia’s ruling party, United Russia, was on course for victory, winning 57.5 per cent of votes with more than 71 per cent of ballots counted.
President Vladimir Putin was widely expected to win due to restrictions on opposition parties.
The timing of the strikes suggests it focused on framing a narrative, as Kyiv saw it as a symbolic attack.
The most striking part is not the scale of the attack, but when Ukraine chose to strike Russia.
A drone attack on this scale that was launched on the final election day could be seen as Kyiv making a statement. One aimed a little more at disrupting the narrative Moscow wanted to project.
