The Russian legislative elections have reached their final stretch with a wave of Ukrainian drones over the Moscow region. In total, two dead in attacks on civilian buildings, two dozen injured and the gigantic refinery in the Kapotnia district in flames. The mayor of the Russian capital, Sergei Sobyanin, has described the attack as the “most massive” suffered by Moscow. Local authorities claim that their anti-aircraft systems shot down 450 drones as they approached the region. “[The bombing] was clearly intended to disrupt the elections,” said the mayor.
The Russian Ministry of Defense has reported "more than 1,600" drone shootdowns in total on "all borders" of the country in recent hours, which would include occupied areas in Ukraine. At the same time that he denounced this attack, he also reported that Russia has launched several attacks against “logistics centers, warehouses and ports” in Ukraine.
“Attacking these facilities belonging to the Russian aggressor constitutes Ukraine's exercise of its inalienable right to self-defense,” the kyiv military authorities say in a statement, referring to the refinery which, they add, also supplies the Kremlin's troops. The offensive kept air traffic canceled at Moscow's two main airports for several hours.
Positions and infrastructure of Russian troops in the areas they occupy in Ukrainian territory have also been attacked, as confirmed by those same sources in kyiv.
Elections at war
The elections are important not only because they are the first parliamentarians since the great invasion of the neighboring country began in February 2022, but because they will serve to measure, to a certain extent, the impact of that war on the management of President Vladimir Putin. In any case, it does not seem that the hegemony of the president's formation, United Russia, is at stake.
Videos from Moscow residents show several fires at the Kapotnia oil complex this morning. Ukraine previously attacked these facilities on June 18. That bombing went around the world with the image of one of the tank lids flying over a ball of fire. These facilities provide more than a third of the capital's fuel, where fuel supply problems at gas stations still continue months later.
Another drone has hit a residential building in the south of Moscow. However, no injuries or deaths have been reported within the capital.
The fatalities of this day, an elderly man and a 44-year-old woman, have lost their lives in other attacks on the outskirts of the city. According to the governor, Andrei Vorobyov, among the injured are three children.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed this offensive action on the last day of the Russian elections. “Our far-reaching responses have had a very significant impact in the Moscow region last night,” the president stressed in X.
“A key installation of the Russian oil industry and another logistics center of the aggressor were hit,” the Ukrainian leader declared before warning that “Moscow must end its brutal war and opt for peace instead of building tiered rings of air defense at the expense of other regions.” “We are preparing to expand our capacity for long-range attacks,” Zelensky also announced without giving further details after a meeting with the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian armed forces, Mikhail Drapati, and the Minister of Defense, Yevgeny Khmara.
Attacks in occupied Ukraine
For its part, the General Staff of Ukraine reported that three points of the aforementioned refinery in Moscow were hit in the offensive, according to a statement.
They have also attacked a Russian Buk-M3 air defense system, made up of surface-to-air missiles in the occupied region of Zaporizhzhia, in southeastern Ukraine. In Donetsk, a region a little further north also partially invaded, they claim to have hit a Nebo-U radar station. Finally, in Lugansk, which remains almost entirely in Russian hands, a drone production center has been attacked.
In parallel, Russia continues to launch daily attacks against kyiv and other regions of Ukraine. Both parties are trying to hit energy infrastructure, weeks before the arrival of the winter months, following the strategy adopted last year.
