Hundreds of drones targeting Moscow and its surrounding region killed at least two people and damaged a major refinery on the final day of the country’s parliamentary elections, authorities said on Sunday.
The capital’s mayor said that more than 1,600 drones had been intercepted and shot down, 450 of which were aimed at Moscow.
Sergei Sobyanin accused Ukraine of attempting to interfere with a tightly controlled three-day election that is set to tighten president Vladimir Putin’s 26-year grip on power.
“The unprecedented attack was clearly planned with the aim of disrupting the elections. The enemy did not succeed,” he said on Telegram.
Moscow’s regional governor said at least two people were killed – a 44-year-old woman and an elderly man – in two separate locations.
A fire triggered by a drone crashing into a 21-storey building also led to 400 people being evacuated, said Moscow regional governor, Andrey Vorobyov, without specifying the drones’ origin.
The attacks come at a time when Kyiv stepped up its long-range drone strike campaign against Russia in recent months, particularly against energy infrastructure to target a vital source of the Kremlin’s revenue to fund its war effort – now in its fifth year.
Ukrainian strikes have knocked out a significant part of Russia’s oil refining capacity, triggering oil product shortages, fuel price increases and long queues at filling stations in many regions across the country’s 11 time zones.
A facility on the territory of the Moscow oil refinery had been damaged, Sobyanin said. No casualties had been reported so far and emergency services were on the scene.
That major refinery has already been hit by Ukrainian strikes in recent months.
Ukraine has not commented on the attacks. Both sides say they do not target civilians.
The latest strike comes after the US president, Donald Trump, said on Monday that Ukraine and Russia had agreed not to target each other’s energy facilities.
It also comes after Russians began voting on Friday in the country’s first parliamentary election since Moscow invaded Ukraine in February 2022.
Only parties that support Putin and the Kremlin’s military campaign have been registered to run. Moscow has also organised voting in occupied Ukraine.
Few Russians doubt Putin’s United Russia party will coast to victory again, but the vote offers a gauge of public support for the war.
With Agence France-Presse and Reuters
