Ukraine Launches Over 1,000 Drones Toward Moscow, Russian Officials Say

Drones on election day

Ukrainian forces launched more than 1,000 drones toward targets across Russia overnight, and Russian officials said their forces intercepted and destroyed around 1,100 Ukrainian drones across several areas, including Crimea and parts of the Black Sea. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said approximately 450 drones were destroyed while heading toward Moscow, and he added that some drones struck the Moscow Oil Refinery and a residential building.

The attack unfolded on the third and final day of Russia’s parliamentary elections, which are being held amid the ongoing war with Ukraine, and Russian authorities described the strike as an attempt to disrupt the voting process. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hailed the strike as a push for Russia to “end its brutal war and choose peace,” writing that “Tonight in the Moscow region, our long-range responses were felt very acutely.”

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Competing death tolls

Russian officials said the biggest attack by enemy drones had been repelled, with Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin writing on Telegram that “This unprecedented attack was clearly planned with the aim of disrupting the elections. The enemy did not succeed.”

In the Moscow region, Russian Governor Andrei Vorobyov said two were killed and 20 wounded, while Al Jazeera reported that at least three people were killed and a major refinery damaged in the Moscow region.

ABC News reported that Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said in posts to Telegram that 450 Ukrainian drones were shot down while heading toward the capital, and that “There were no fatalities,” even as he said several drones reached the Moscow Oil Refinery and one hit a residential building.

Zelenskyy said the strikes hit “one of Russia’s key oil industry facilities and the aggressor’s logistics facility,” and he framed the attack as “billions of dollars that support the war machine.”

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What comes next

The drone barrage and the election-day timing fed into a broader contest over long-range strikes, with Russia and Ukraine continuing to escalate attacks on each other while Moscow held voting in four Ukrainian regions it claims to have annexed and in Crimea. Zelenskyy said Ukraine’s long-range strikes had a “very significant impact in the Moscow region last night,” and he called for new sanctions steps against the aggressor, writing that “We are counting on new, strong steps.”

Russian authorities said the attack was meant to disrupt the elections, but Sobyanin said the effort had failed to interfere with voting, while Russia’s Defence Ministry said it shot down 1,110 Ukrainian drones across the country, including over Crimea and the waters of the Black Sea. Beyond Moscow, the same reporting tied the escalation to other battlefield impacts, including a Russian drone strike on a monastery in Ukraine’s Kherson region that Zelenskyy said killed a member of the clergy and wounded four people, and a Russian attack on Kyiv that Tymur Tkachenko said killed three children and their mother.

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