Moscow faces 'largest ever' attack as Ukraine fires over 1,000 drones
A multi-storey apartment building that local authorities said was hit by Ukrainian drones. (Reuters: Stringer)
In short:
Russia's Ministry of Defence said its forces shot down 1,100 Ukrainian drones across the country on Sunday.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that 450 drones had been destroyed en route to the city, with an oil refinery and a residential building hit.
What's next?
The attack comes as Russia enters the third and final day of voting in its first wartime parliamentary election.
Ukrainian forces have fired more than 1,000 drones at Russia overnight, officials say, including what Moscow's mayor has described as the "largest ever" attack on the Russian capital.
Russia's Ministry of Defence said that its forces shot down 1,100 Ukrainian drones across the country on Sunday, as well as over the annexed Ukrainian peninsula of Crimea and the waters of the Black Sea.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that 450 drones had been destroyed en route to the Russian capital.
Some drones hit an oil refinery and a residential building, he said.
Plumes of smoke rise from fires at an oil refinery following what authorities say was a Ukrainian drone strike. (Reuters: Stringer)
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed the strike on the oil refinery in a post on X on Sunday.
"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," Mr Zelenskyy said.
Russia enters final day of voting
The major attack came on the third and final day of voting in Russia's first wartime parliamentary election, with balloting virtually devoid of opposition to President Vladimir Putin's policies and all but certain to cement the Kremlin's dominance.
Russia held voting in four Ukrainian regions that Moscow illegally annexed after the war began but still does not fully control, and in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula illegally annexed by Russia in 2014.
A voter casts his ballot at a polling station in Donetsk, a Russian-controlled city of Ukraine. (Reuters: Alexander Ermochenko)
Kyiv has denounced the action as illegal.
Mr Sobyanin said on Sunday that the "unprecedented attack" on the capital was an attempt to disrupt the elections.
"The enemy failed in this regard," he said.
The head of Russia's election commission said a drone attack on a civilian bus killed two people, including an election official.
The attack happened in a Russian-controlled part of the Kherson region in Ukraine, RIA news agency reported on Sunday.
Central Election Commission (CEC) chairwoman Ella Pamfilova was speaking at a briefing on the final day of a parliamentary election that President Vladimir Putin has cast as a test of support for Russia's war in Ukraine.
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