At least three killed in Ukrainian drone attack on Moscow, says Russia

At least three people have been killed and a major refinery damaged in a mass Ukrainian drone attack in the Moscow region, on the final day of Russia’s parliamentary elections.

Moscow’s Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Sunday that more than 1,600 drones had been intercepted, 450 of them heading for the capital.

In Ukraine, authorities said at least four people, including three children, were killed in overnight Russian attacks on the Kyiv region.

In the southern region of Kherson, Russian strikes killed at least three people and injured nine, police reported.

The attacks come as Russia and Ukraine continue long-range strikes against each other.

‘Unprecedented’ attack on Moscow

Moscow Governor Andrey Vorobyov said two people were killed in two separate Ukrainian attacks and a third person later succumbed to their injuries. A fire triggered by a drone crashing into a 21-storey building forced the evacuation of 400 people, Vorobyov said on Telegram.

A facility at a Moscow oil refinery was damaged in the wave of attacks and emergency services responded, Sobyanin said. The major refinery has previously been hit by Ukrainian strikes in recent months.

The mayor accused Ukraine of attempting to interfere with Russia’s tightly controlled three-day election.

“The unprecedented attack was clearly planned with the aim of disrupting the elections. The enemy did not succeed,” he said.

Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelenskyy praised the strikes: “Our long-range responses had a very significant impact in the Moscow region last night.”

“One of Russia’s key oil industry facilities and the aggressor’s logistics facility were hit. These are billions of dollars that sustain the war machine,” he posted on X.

The head ⁠of ⁠Russia’s Central Election Commission said ⁠a drone attack on ⁠a bus killed three people, including an election official, ‌in a Russian-occupied part of Kherson region in Ukraine, reported the RIA Novosti news agency.

“Russian forces carried out an artillery attack near Novovorontsovka [in the Kherson region]. As a result of the shelling, a 52-year-old woman sustained fatal injuries. A 14-year-old girl and a 39-year-old woman also suffered fatal blast injuries and concussions,” the National Police of Ukraine said in a statement.

The strikes come as Kyiv has intensified its long-range drone campaign against Russia, particularly targeting energy infrastructure to cut off a vital source of Kremlin revenue used to fund its war effort, now in its fifth year.

Al Jazeera’s Dmitry Medvedenko, reporting from Moscow, said it was among the largest single-day attacks on Russia since the war began.

“I have not seen numbers this large in the four and a half years of this conflict, especially in the past six months when Ukrainian attacks have escalated,” he said.

It is no coincidence that the large-scale attack is happening on the last day of the Russian elections, our reporter added.

“This is the most important final day of the election. Will it cause people to express their frustration with how this conflict has been affecting them directly after four and a half years? Will it cause them to rally around the flag here, show unity, as President Vladimir Putin was calling on people to do? We will have to wait and see.”

Ukraine’s air force reported the launching of 138 Russian drones of various types across the country overnight, according to the Interfax-Ukraine news agency. It said air defences managed to shoot down 101 of them.

A woman and her two three-year-old children died when a Russian drone hit a home in the Kyiv region, according to the emergency services. Kyiv region’s Governor Tymur Tkachenko said a girl died in hospital after a separate drone attack in another district.

Tkachenko said the region endured more than a day of attacks, with 31 sites damaged in five districts. The southwestern Fastiv district sustained the most damage, with 24 sites hit, including homes, industrial and utility buildings, vehicles and the grounds of an agricultural enterprise.

In the Sumy region in northeastern Ukraine, Russian forces have occupied a further four km-wide (2.4 miles) strip of land along the border, according to Viktor Tregubov, a spokesman for the Khortytsia operational group of Ukrainian ground forces.

The Russian Defence Ministry said forces destroyed two Ukrainian Army 35D6 radar stations in the Odesa and Dnipropetrovsk regions.

Reporting from Kyiv, Al Jazeera’s Rory Challands said the Kyiv region has been targeted frequently in recent days.

“These strikes have been going on in Kyiv, where you get the air raid sirens going off pretty much around the clock, with drones coming in and missiles being used on occasion as well. So, it’s part of the reality of life in Ukraine at the moment.”