SRINAGAR: Ukrainian forces launched more than 1,000 drones at Russia overnight, including hundreds targeting Moscow, in what the city’s mayor described as the largest-ever drone attack on the Russian capital.
The strikes came as Russia concluded the third and final day of its parliamentary elections on Sunday.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said 450 drones had been destroyed while heading towards the capital. He reported damage to the Moscow Oil Refinery, which supplies fuel to the city, and a residential building.
Two people were killed and 20 others injured in the wider Moscow region, Governor Andrei Vorobyov said. The deceased were identified as a 74-year-old man and a 44-year-old woman.
Sobyanin described the attack as unprecedented and accused Kyiv of attempting to disrupt the elections.
“The enemy failed in this regard,” he said.
Zelenskyy Says Strikes Targeted Oil, Logistics Facilities
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Kyiv had used a combination of missiles and drones to target oil and logistics facilities in Russia.
In a social media post, he said the strikes included Ukraine’s domestically produced Flamingo and Pelican missiles.
“These are billions of dollars that sustain the war machine,” Zelenskyy said, referring to the economic pressure Kyiv seeks to impose on Moscow.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said its forces had shot down 1,110 Ukrainian drones across the country, as well as over Crimea and the Black Sea.
Civilian Casualties Reported In Ukraine
Zelenskyy said Russian attacks continued in Ukraine, including a drone strike on a monastery in the Kherson region on Saturday that killed a member of the clergy and injured four others.
In Kyiv, a Russian attack on Saturday evening killed two children and their mother, according to Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv regional state administration. Tkachenko later said another child injured in the attack had died in hospital on Sunday.
Russia Holds Parliamentary Elections
The drone attack took place on the final day of Russia’s first wartime parliamentary election, a vote widely seen as reinforcing President Vladimir Putin’s political dominance.
Russia also held voting in Crimea and four Ukrainian regions it annexed after the war began, despite not fully controlling all the territories. Kyiv has condemned the elections as illegal.
Russia’s Central Election Commission said a Ukrainian attack in an occupied area of Kherson killed a member of a local electoral committee.
Long-Range Strikes Intensify
Ukraine has developed a significant domestic drone industry since Russia launched its full-scale invasion more than four years ago. Its forces have increasingly used long-range drones and missiles to strike targets deep inside Russian territory.
Kyiv has sought to increase pressure on Russia’s economy and make the consequences of the war more visible to the Russian public, while pushing Moscow towards peace negotiations.
The Kremlin has shown no indication of ending the invasion, and the two sides have continued exchanging long-range aerial strikes.
Meanwhile, fighting along the approximately 1,250-kilometre front line in eastern and southern Ukraine has slowed in some areas, with drones and ground robots increasingly complicating troop movements and battlefield operations. (AP)
