Ukraine carried out its largest-ever drone attack on the Russian capital and surrounding area on Sunday, as voting in Russia’s parliamentary elections entered its last day.
Ukrainian forces fired more than 1,000 drones at Russia overnight, hundreds of them toward Moscow. City Mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, said more than 1,600 drones had been shot down, 450 of them aimed at the capital.
Russia’s Defense Ministry gave a higher tally, saying more than 1,900 drones, along with missiles, rockets and guided bombs, were shot down overnight. Kyiv has not confirmed the exact numbers.
Regional Governor, Andrei Vorobyov, said two people were killed and 20 wounded, and the dead were a 74-year-old man and a 44-year-old woman.
CNN later reported that a third person died in hospital. A drone strike also forced the evacuation of 400 people, including 70 children, from a 21-storey apartment block in the Ramenskoye district.
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Mayor Sobyanin said several drones reached the Moscow refinery and one hit a residential building. He said the assault was a deliberate election interference, saying it was planned to disrupt the vote.
Ukrainian President, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, did not mention the election, saying Kyiv used missiles and drones, including its domestically made Flamingo and Pelican missiles, to hit oil and logistics facilities. He described the targets as billions of dollars that sustain the war machine.
The strike came days after United States President Donald Trump said Russia and Ukraine had agreed not to target each other’s energy facilities.
Kyiv, meanwhile, has stepped up its long-range strikes on Russian energy infrastructure in recent months to squeeze a key source of Kremlin revenue.
The war, that started in February 2022, does not show any signs of ending as talks, which were initiated and facilitated by the United States, have also completely stalled.
Russia had not agreed on giving up its war time territorial gains while Ukraine and its European allies pursued it as one of the core demands for an end to war and a lasting settlement.
