At least two dead in massive Ukrainian drone attack on Moscow region's largest oil depot

At least two people have been killed in a massive Ukrainian attack that targeted the largest oil deposit in the Moscow region. The mayor of the capital, Sergei Sobyanin, has assured that kyiv launched some 650 unmanned devices during the night. "The majority were destroyed by air defenses in distant areas. 105 drones were destroyed when they approached Moscow," the mayor said on his Telegram channel. The governor of the Moscow region, Andrei Vorobyov, stated that his anti-aircraft systems had intercepted 185 of those aircraft.

This bombing has also left nine people injured. Rescue services found the body of a 71-year-old man while removing rubble from a destroyed building in Barybino, a town near Domodedovo airport, southeast of Moscow. Authorities also confirmed the death of a 20-year-old young man in Radumlia, northwest of the Russian capital.

The Astra news channel, linked to the security forces, claims that the target of this barrage was the Volodarskaya crude oil deposit, owned by the oil company Transnefteprodukt. It is the largest facility of this type in the region, as some three million tons of crude oil, diesel and jet fuel pass through it per year from the Moscow and Ryazan refineries.

An extensive network of pipelines connects these facilities with the capital's airports. Ukrainian monitoring channels and the Russian media Astra point out that the warehouse burned, citing images of the place and statements from eyewitnesses.

The Russian Ministry of Defense claims to have shot down 868 drones in total throughout the night from Monday to Tuesday. “Ukrainian fixed-wing aircraft [UAV] were intercepted over the regions of Belgorod, Bryansk, Kaluga, Kursk, Lipetsk, Oryol, Ryazan, Smolensk, Tver, Tula, the Moscow region, the Republic of Crimea and the Sea of ​​Azov,” the statement from the Russian armed forces said.

The governor of the border region of Belgorod, Alexander Shuvayev, has raised the number of wounded to 11 in the last 24 hours in his province, one of the hardest hit by the war with more than half a thousand fatalities since the beginning of the invasion of Ukraine.

Russian authorities say that at least 47 homes have been affected to varying degrees by the explosions. "In four apartments in a building in Domodedovo, windows and balcony glass were broken. There were no injuries and no evacuation was necessary. The windows of a nearby boiler room were also damaged," the regional governor said.

Another warehouse in Litvinovo burned in the attack. A drone fell on its roof and 46 employees were evacuated, although emergency services have already extinguished the fire.