Ukraine yesterday launched a major drone attack on Moscow, hitting the Russian capital’s oil refinery for the second time this week in what Kyiv cast as a response to an attack that damaged a nearly 1,000-year-old monastery.
“We don’t want this war, we never did, and everyone knows it, and our partners know it,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said in a voice message sent to reporters on a WhatsApp group. “But if Ukraine burns, your Moscow will burn.”
Russia, for its part, fired missiles into Kyiv, also for the second time this week, following the attack that damaged the Kyiv Pechersk Lavra monastery and drew international condemnation.
Russia denied striking it.
In Moscow, Reuters saw flames and plumes of smoke over the densely populated southeastern district of Kapotnya where the refinery supplying the capital is located.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that several drones managed to reach the refinery, adding that a shopping centre also suffered minor damage.
Russia’s defence ministry said 555 drones were shot down across the country. Sobyanin said 180 were shot down around Moscow alone. State news agency TASS said the attack on Moscow was one of the biggest this year.
Zelenskiy confirmed the attack on the refinery. Ukraine’s military said that Ukrainian forces also hit an oil depot in Russia’s southern Rostov region and another two bridges as Kyiv intensifies its campaign to hamper Russia’s logistics.
More than four years since Russia’s full-scale invasion, Ukraine has increasingly been targeting Russia’s energy infrastructure with long-range drone strikes, while Russia has continued firing missiles at Ukrainian cities.
After years when Russian forces made slow but relentless gains on the battlefield, Kyiv says its improving drone capabilities are shifting the war’s momentum in its favour, providing new impetus for Moscow to agree a peace deal.
Zelenskiy has launched a diplomatic push to increase pressure on Russia to negotiate an end to the war.
“One of the most popular questions asked by Muscovites this morning is ‘What is going on?’ I can answer. Your country started a war of aggression against ours. For years, it has been killing our people. Now that you know what’s going on, ask Putin when he is planning to end it,” Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha posted on X.
Moscow, which says Ukraine is losing, has demanded Kyiv cede its territory before it will discuss peace.
Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said that Ukraine’s latest attacks on Russia are pushing back the prospect of any direct contacts between President Vladimir Putin and Zelenskiy, the Interfax news agency reported.
Zelenskiy called the attacks on Russia a “totally fair response to Russian strikes on our cities and communities and another important result of the work of our soldiers on facilities that provide support for the Russian war machine”.
A drone strike on Tuesday on Moscow’s refinery had already halted operations there, sources said, adding to widespread damage to Russian energy facilities.
Russia, the world’s third-biggest oil producer and a major oil and fuel exporter, is set to import fuel by sea this month as it seeks to manage a petrol shortage following Ukrainian drone attacks on refineries, according to industry sources.
In the surrounding Moscow region, a high-rise residential building, an industrial facility and a number of private houses were damaged in the drone attack, which also injured 16 people, the regional governor said.
Flights were suspended at all Moscow airports and traffic shut on the highway around the capital near the refinery. Sheremetyevo airport, Moscow’s busiest, said it had been evacuated.
Elsewhere in Russia, officials said a Ukrainian drone strike killed a man in his car in the Belgorod border region, and a Ukrainian drone attack killed one person and caused a fire at two commercial facilities in the Rostov region.
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