Ukraine Hits Moscow Region Oil Refinery in 'Massive' Drone Attack
MOSCOW/KYIV — At least two people were killed and six injured when Ukraine launched what Russian officials described as a massive overnight drone attack on the Moscow region, Gov. Andrei Vorobyev said Sunday.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said 450 drones bound for the capital had been shot down in an assault he called unprecedented. The city's main oil refinery was damaged, and several homes caught fire, he said.
The attack is believed to be among the largest drone strikes on the Moscow region since Russia's full-scale invasion of Ukraine began in February 2022, a sign of Kyiv's growing ability to project force deep into Russian territory. Both sides have escalated long-range attacks on energy and transport infrastructure in recent weeks.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed Kyiv struck a key Russian oil facility and a logistics site in the region, describing the targets as representing billions of dollars that sustain the war machine.
Ukrainian officials, meanwhile, said nine people, including three children, were killed in Russian attacks in the Kyiv and Sumy regions on Saturday.
In the Moscow region, Vorobyev said a 44-year-old woman was killed Sunday when a drone hit a three-story residential building in Sofyino. Five others, including two children, were injured. An elderly man also died after a private house was struck in the Orekhovo-Zuevo district, he said.
Videos circulating on social media appeared to show explosions in the night sky above Moscow and a burning warehouse. The BBC has not verified the footage.
Sobyanin said a drone struck a building near one of the capital's boulevards as well as the oil refinery. Ukrainian military officials said three key units at the refinery were damaged. According to Kyiv's Defense Ministry, the site supplies more than a third of the Moscow region's fuel, and some of its gasoline, diesel and aviation fuel goes to Russia's military.
Ukraine's defense minister said attacking such facilities directly undermines the enemy's ability to continue its war of aggression and supply its military formations.
Sobyanin described the attack as an attempt to disrupt Russia's parliamentary election, which entered its third day Sunday. The vote is tightly controlled by the Kremlin and has been dismissed by critics as neither free, fair nor transparent.
Russian state media reported that an election official was one of two people killed by a drone attack on a bus in a Moscow-controlled part of Ukraine's Kherson region on Sunday, citing the head of Russia's election commission.
Moscow's largest airport, Sheremetyevo, warned passengers of temporary restrictions overnight, while Vnukovo halted all arrivals and departures. Restrictions at both airports were lifted by Sunday morning, but officials warned some flights could still be delayed.
The strikes came after a mother and her two small children, a boy and a girl, were killed in a Russian attack in the Kyiv-area city of Fastiv on Saturday, according to regional head Tymur Tkachenko. He later said a child injured in a separate attack in Vyshhorod, north of Kyiv, had died in the hospital.
In the northeastern Sumy region, four people were killed when a Russian drone hit the car they were traveling in, top local official Oleh Hryhorov said. Zelensky said Russia also struck a monastery in the Kherson region with a drone on Saturday, killing one member of the clergy and injuring four others.
Both Russia and Ukraine have continued to hit energy infrastructure targets over the past week, despite U.S. President Donald Trump claiming on social media that the two sides had agreed not to do so. On Friday, Trump signed a sanctions bill aimed at Russia's economy by imposing tariffs on the biggest buyers of Russian oil and gas, including China and India. The legislation gives the U.S. president powers to impose 100% tariffs on major purchasers of Russian energy.
The intensified strikes underline how the war's front line now extends far beyond the battlefield, with drones and missiles targeting refineries, power stations, ports and logistics hubs that keep each side's military and economy running. The Moscow refinery strike, in particular, could complicate fuel supplies in the capital region and add pressure to Russia's already strained energy network, though the full extent of the damage was not immediately clear.
Russian President Vladimir Putin launched a full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
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