Ukraine fired more than 1,000 drones at Russian territory overnight into Sunday, with hundreds aimed at Moscow in what the city’s mayor called the largest assault yet on the Russian capital, as Russia wrapped up three days of parliamentary voting.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said air defences intercepted 450 drones before they reached the city. Russia’s Defence Ministry put the nationwide total at 1,100 drones downed, including over annexed Crimea and the Black Sea.
The strikes damaged a Moscow oil refinery and a residential building. Regional Governor Andrei Vorobyov said two people were killed in the Moscow area — a 74-year-old man and a 44-year-old woman — and 20 were injured. Two more people, including an election official, were killed by a drone strike on a bus in Russian-occupied Kherson region, election officials said.
The attack coincided with the final day of Russia’s first parliamentary election held since the invasion of Ukraine began in 2022, a vote Moscow has cast as a show of public backing for the war effort and which is expected to hand President Vladimir Putin’s allies a commanding majority. Sobyanin said the barrage was timed to disrupt voting but that the effort had failed.
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said Ukrainian forces struck Russian oil and logistics infrastructure using a mix of long-range missiles and drones, including domestically produced Flamingo and Pelican missiles.
