Russia repels ‘massive’ Ukrainian drone strike

Russia disclosed that it had repelled a “massive” Ukrainian drone attack on energy and fuel plants in Moscow and 14 regions, one of the largest such strikes since the start of the two-and-half year conflict.

Ukraine has repeatedly sent drones to strike Russia’s energy infrastructure in recent months, in retaliation for Moscow’s missile attacks that have hugely damaged its own energy network since the Kremlin first sent troops into the country in February 2022.

“It is entirely justified for Ukrainians to respond to Russian terror by any means necessary to stop it,” President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on Facebook.

The latest barrage saw 158 drones fired, most of them downed over the regions of Kursk, Bryansk, Voronezh and Belgorod which border Ukraine, Russia’s defense ministry said.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that 10 drones had targeted various areas in and around the capital.

One of them sparked a fire at an oil refinery within the city limits of the sprawling capital, he said, while a coal-fired power plant near the city was also reported to have been targeted.

The barrage came just days after Russia sent over 200 drones and missiles at Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, in one of the largest such attacks.

It also comes nearly a month since Ukraine went on the offensive in Russia’s Kursk region, crossing the border and capturing Russian territory as Russian troops continued their slow but steady advance in eastern Ukraine.

Sobyanin said Sunday morning that a downed drone had hit a “technical building” at the Moscow oil refinery, owned by the Gazprom energy giant, in the southeast Kapotnya area of the capital.

The mayor later said “the fire at the oil refinery has been localized and there is no threat to people or the plant’s operation.”

In the Tver region northwest of Moscow, five drones targeted the area of Konakovo power plant and caused a fire that was swiftly extinguished, according to governor Igor Rudenya.

A local official in the Moscow region, Mikhail Shuvalov, said on Telegram that three drones had also tried to hit the Kashira coal-fired power station, but that “there were no victims nor damage and it did not catch fire.”