MOSCOW — Ukrainian forces launched more than 1,000 drones at Russia overnight, including hundreds toward Moscow, as Russia concluded the third and final day of its parliamentary elections Sunday, according to Russian officials.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin called the attack the largest ever against the Russian capital. He said drones damaged the Moscow Oil Refinery and a residential building.
Moscow region Gov. Andrei Vorobyov said the attack killed two people and wounded 20 others. The victims included a 74-year-old man and a 44-year-old woman, he said.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces intercepted 1,110 Ukrainian drones across Russia, Crimea and the Black Sea during the overnight attack. Sobyanin said air defenses destroyed 450 drones approaching Moscow.
Sobyanin also said the attack sought to disrupt the parliamentary election but did not prevent voting from continuing.
Ukraine targets Russian infrastructure
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Kyiv used drones and missiles against Russian oil and logistics facilities.
Zelenskyy said the strikes targeted infrastructure that generates revenue for Russia’s war effort. He identified Ukraine’s domestically produced Flamingo and Pelican missiles among the weapons used.
The attacks marked another escalation in long-range strikes between Russia and Ukraine as the war enters its fifth year. Both sides have increasingly used drones to target infrastructure and military facilities far from the front line.
Ukraine also reported casualties from Russian attacks.
Zelenskyy said a Russian drone strike hit a monastery in Ukraine’s Kherson region Saturday, killing a member of the clergy and wounding four people.
Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv regional military administration, said a Russian attack on Kyiv killed two children and their mother Saturday evening. He later said another child who suffered injuries in the attack died at a hospital.
Drone attack coincides with Russian election
The drone barrage came as Russia completed its first parliamentary election since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Russia also held voting in Ukrainian territories that Moscow claims to have annexed, including parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Zaporizhzhia and Kherson, as well as Crimea. Ukraine and other governments reject Russia’s annexation claims.
Russia’s Central Election Commission said a Ukrainian attack in Russian-occupied Kherson killed a member of a local electoral committee.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said the drone barrage did not prevent the election from proceeding.
Russian voters were choosing members of the State Duma during the three-day election, which ended Sunday. Preliminary results released Monday showed the Kremlin-aligned United Russia party maintaining its parliamentary majority.
