Moscow reports largest drone attack during Russian elections

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, and a residential building was hit.

The drone strikes killed two people in the Moscow region and two more in the Russian-held part of Ukraine's Kherson region, including an election official, according to Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin and election authorities.

Central Election Commission (CEC) chairwoman Ella Pamfilova 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.

In the village of Sofyino, south of Moscow, a body covered in a stained blanket lay in front of a damaged apartment block, the upper windows of which were blown out.

"Glass went flying; people started screaming and shouting. I turned around, and the entrance doors had already been blown out, debris everywhere," said resident Vitaliy, who gave only his first name.

A facility at the Moscow refinery was damaged in the attack, Mayor Sobyanin said, without giving further details, news agency Interfax reported.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy confirmed the strike on the 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.

Ukrainian strikes have knocked out a significant part of Russia's oil refining capacity, triggering oil product shortages, fuel price increases and long queues at filling stations in many regions across the country's 11 time zones.

The Moscow plant, which has been targeted multiple times, processed 11.6 million metric tons of oil in 2024, producing 2.9 million tons of gasoline and 3.2 million tons of diesel, the latest available data shows.

In the wider Moscow region, in addition to the two deaths, 400 people, including 70 children, were evacuated from a 21-storey apartment block in the Ramenskoye district and a number of homes were damaged, said Governor Andrei ​Vorobyov.

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.

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.

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.

Kyiv has denounced the action as illegal.