MOSCOW (Dunya News) – Ukraine launched one of its largest-ever overnight aerial assaults on Russia, with Moscow claiming its forces intercepted more than 1,100 drones across the country as hundreds targeted the capital and surrounding region.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin described the attack as the biggest drone assault yet against the Russian capital. He said debris from intercepted drones damaged the Moscow Oil Refinery and a residential building.
The governor of the wider Moscow region, Andrei Vorobyov, said two people were killed and 20 others wounded during the attacks. The victims included a 74-year-old man and a 44-year-old woman.
Russia’s Defence Ministry said its air-defence systems destroyed or intercepted 1,110 Ukrainian drones over Russian territory, the annexed Crimean Peninsula and the Black Sea.
According to Sobyanin, 450 drones were destroyed while heading towards Moscow. He described the attack as an attempt to disrupt Russia’s parliamentary elections, which concluded on Sunday.
“The enemy failed in this regard,” the mayor said.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Kyiv had employed a combination of domestically produced missiles and long-range drones against Russian targets. He said the strikes focused on oil and logistics infrastructure that Ukraine considers important to Russia’s war effort.
Zelenskyy specifically mentioned Ukraine-made Flamingo and Pelican missiles, saying the attacks were intended to impose economic pressure on Moscow by targeting facilities that generate revenue for the Russian military campaign.
The latest escalation came as Russia concluded its first parliamentary elections held entirely during the full-scale war with Ukraine. The voting has faced criticism from Kyiv and Western governments over the absence of meaningful opposition and Russia’s decision to conduct polling in Ukrainian territories it controls.
Russia also held voting in parts of four Ukrainian regions it claims to have annexed, as well as Crimea, which Moscow seized in 2014. Ukraine considers the elections in those territories illegal.
Ukraine has simultaneously faced continued Russian aerial attacks. Zelenskyy said a Russian drone strike on a monastery in the Kherson region killed a member of the clergy and injured four others.
Another Russian strike on Kyiv on Saturday evening killed three members of the same family, including 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.
The intensifying exchange highlights the growing role of long-range drones and missiles in the Russia-Ukraine war. Ukraine has significantly expanded its domestic drone industry since Russia launched its full-scale invasion, enabling Kyiv to conduct attacks far beyond the front line.
The two sides have increasingly relied on long-range aerial strikes as battlefield movement has become more difficult because of extensive drone deployment and ground-based robotic systems.
The latest strikes underscore the widening geographic reach of the conflict, with both Moscow and Kyiv continuing to target infrastructure and military-related facilities deep behind the front lines.
