Ukraine launches ‘largest ever’ drone attack on Moscow

Ukrainian forces launched more than 1,000 drones at Russia overnight Sunday, including hundreds directed at Moscow, in what the Russian capital's mayor called the "largest ever" drone assault on the city. The attack coincided with the final day of Russia's first wartime parliamentary elections and damaged the Moscow Oil Refinery, one of the facilities supplying fuel to the capital.

Russia's Ministry of Defense said its forces shot down a total of 1,110 Ukrainian drones across the country, including over the annexed Crimean peninsula and the Black Sea. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said 450 of those drones were intercepted en route to the capital, but acknowledged that some struck the oil refinery and a residential building. In the wider Moscow region, the attack killed two people — a 74-year-old man and a 44-year-old woman — and wounded 20, according to regional Governor Andrei Vorobyov.bozemandailychronicle+3

New Missiles Deployed

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Kyiv used a range of weapons in the operation, including domestically produced Flamingo cruise missiles and, for the first time, the Pelican ballistic missile. The arsenal also included FP-1, RZ-100, Palianytsia, Vendetta, Liutyi, Bars, and Sichen drones and missiles, according to Ukrainska Pravda.english.nv+1

"One of the key enterprises of the Russian Federation's oil industry and an aggressor's logistics facility have been struck," Zelenskyy wrote on X. "These are billions of dollars that sustain the war machine."foxnews+1

Zelenskyy called on the United States, Europe, and G7 nations to impose new sanctions against Russia, writing that "now is the right moment to take new sanctions steps against the aggressor and force peace through strength."foxnews

Election Day Backdrop

The strikes landed as Russians completed three days of voting in parliamentary elections for the State Duma, the first such balloting since the full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022. The election, held from September 18 to 20, was widely expected to reinforce the ruling United Russia party's dominance and was largely devoid of opposition to President Vladimir Putin's war policies.wikipedia+3

Sobyanin said the "unprecedented attack" was "clearly planned with the aim of disrupting the elections," adding, "The enemy did not succeed." Russia also held voting in four Ukrainian regions it illegally annexed after the war began but does not fully control, as well as in Crimea.bozemandailychronicle+2

Civilians Caught in the Crossfire

The exchange of strikes continued to exact a toll on civilians on both sides. A Russian drone hit a monastery in Ukraine's Kherson region on Saturday, killing a member of the clergy and wounding four. A separate Russian attack on Kyiv killed three children and their mother Saturday evening, with a fourth child dying in hospital on Sunday, according to Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv regional state administration.bozemandailychronicle+1

"Moscow must end its brutal war and choose peace instead of building layered rings of air defense at the expense of other regions," Zelenskyy wrote.foxnews