Ukrainian forces launched more than 1,000 drones at targets across Russia overnight, including hundreds directed toward Moscow, Russian officials said Sunday as the Kremlin concluded the third and final day of parliamentary elections.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin described the attack as the largest drone assault ever targeting the Russian capital. He said drones damaged the Moscow Oil Refinery and a residential building.
In the wider Moscow region, two people were killed and 20 others wounded, regional Governor Andrei Vorobyov said. The victims were identified as a 74-year-old man and a 44-year-old woman.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Kyiv used several types of missiles and drones in the operation. He specifically mentioned Ukraine’s domestically produced Flamingo and Pelican missiles, saying they targeted oil and logistics facilities.
“These are billions of dollars that sustain the war machine,” Zelenskyy said, describing the strikes as part of efforts to increase economic pressure on Russia.
Ukraine also faced continued Russian attacks. Zelenskyy said a Russian drone strike hit a monastery in the Kherson region on Saturday, killing a member of the clergy and injuring four others.
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A separate Russian attack on Kyiv killed two children and their mother on Saturday evening, according to Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv regional state administration. He later said another child wounded in the attack had died in hospital on Sunday.
The latest Ukraine Russia escalation coincided with Russia’s first wartime parliamentary election. The vote has faced criticism from Kyiv and Western governments over the lack of meaningful opposition to President Vladimir Putin’s policies.
Russia also held voting in four Ukrainian regions that Moscow claims to have annexed, as well as Crimea, which Russia annexed in 2014. Kyiv has rejected the elections in those territories as illegal.
In Russian-occupied parts of Ukraine’s Kherson region, Russia’s Central Election Commission said a Ukrainian attack killed a member of a local electoral committee.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said its forces had destroyed 1,110 Ukrainian drones across Russia, Crimea and the Black Sea. Sobyanin said 450 drones were intercepted while approaching Moscow.
The Moscow mayor called the attack unprecedented and accused Ukraine of attempting to disrupt the elections. He said the effort had failed.
Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion more than four years ago, Ukraine has developed extensive long-range drone capabilities. Kyiv has increasingly combined domestically produced drones with missiles to strike targets deep inside Russian territory.
Ukraine has said such attacks are intended to increase pressure on Russia and demonstrate the consequences of the war to the Russian public. Moscow and Kyiv have continued exchanging long-range strikes while ground fighting along the approximately 1,250-kilometre front has slowed in some areas.
