Ukraine sets Moscow refinery ablaze in biggest attack in years

MOSCOW

Ukraine on Thursday launched its largest drone attack on Moscow in years, sparking fires in and around the capital, hitting a major oil refinery and forcing evacuations at the country’s largest airport, officials said.

Large columns of black smoke spread over the capital’s southern skyline in dramatic scenes, while flames could be seen burning on part of an oil complex in the southern Kapotnya district.

A strong, unpleasant smell hung in the air, as the fire burned at the refinery through the morning.

The strikes came as Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted Southeast Asian leaders at a summit in the central city of Kazan, about 700 kilometers east of the capital.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky praised the strikes in a post on social media, calling them a “fully justified response” to Russian attacks on Ukraine.

The attack was the largest on Moscow in at least two years, Russia’s state TASS news agency reported.

And the second time this month that Kiev has launched a major attack during an international summit after striking Saint Petersburg at the start of a landmark economic forum near the city.

All of Moscow’s airports were shut for hours, leading to hundreds of flight delays.

The country’s busiest, Sheremetyevo, announced it had evacuated passengers to “safe locations” during the barrage, before it reopened at around 11 a.m.

“Several drones managed to reach the MNPZ [Moscow Oil Refinery],” Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin wrote on Telegram early yesterday, without specifying damage to the facility.

Authorities announced they had closed traffic on streets nearby.

Another drone crashed into an apartment building in the Moscow region district of Zhukovsky, while drone debris sparked a fire at a shopping center near the capital’s suburbs, Moscow region governor Andrey Voro-byov said.

One social media video showed smoke pouring from the upper floors of an apartment block, while a woman behind the camera could be heard weeping in distress.

Russian air defenses shot down around 180 drones on approach to Moscow, Sobyanin said, while the Defense Ministry reported it had intercepted more than 500 Ukrainian drones across the entire country overnight.

A separate Ukrainian drone strike on Russia’s southern Rostov region left one person dead and at least two in-jured, the region’s governor said.

Kiev has stepped up its drone strikes on Russia in recent months, hitting oil refineries that fund Moscow’s war chest, as diplomatic talks on ending the more than four-year conflict remain stalled.

It was the second Ukrainian strike on the Moscow refinery this week.

Zelensky calls the attacks Kiev’s “long-range sanctions.”

“It is time the war ended, and Russia must take the necessary steps in diplomacy,” he said.