A mass Ukrainian drone attack on Moscow and the surrounding region killed at least two people and damaged a major oil refinery, Russian officials said, as the country held the final day of its parliamentary elections.
Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin said more than 1,600 drones had been intercepted and shot down, including 450 that were heading towards the capital.
He accused Ukraine of trying to disrupt the tightly controlled three-day vote, which is expected to further consolidate 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,” Mr Sobyanin said in a Telegram post.
Andrey Vorobyov, governor of the Moscow region, said a 44-year-old woman and an elderly man had been killed at separate locations.
A drone crash also sparked a fire at a 21-storey building, forcing about 400 people to leave the property, Mr Vorobyov said.
Mr Sobyanin said a facility at the Moscow Oil Refinery had been damaged. No casualties had been reported at the site, he added, with emergency services responding.
The refinery has been struck by Ukrainian attacks in recent months, as Kyiv has intensified its long-range drone campaign against Russian energy infrastructure.
The latest strikes came after US President Donald Trump said on Monday that Russia and Ukraine had agreed not to target each other’s energy facilities.
Russia has also organised voting in parts of Ukraine it has seized since sending troops into the country in February 2022, a war that has killed hundreds of thousands of people.
Ukraine’s Air Force Command, meanwhile, said Russia had launched 138 drones of various types across Ukraine overnight. Air defences shot down or neutralised 101 of them, it said.
