Ukrainian drones and missiles target Moscow, oil refinery in deadly attack: Officials
LONDON -- Plumes of smoke rose over Moscow on Sunday morning after a Ukrainian drone and missile attack on the city in which a major oil refinery was among the targets, according to the Russian capital's mayor.
Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said in posts to Telegram that 450 Ukrainian drones were shot down while heading toward the capital on Saturday night into Sunday morning, describing the latest attack as "unprecedented."
"Several drones did reach the territory of the Moscow Oil Refinery, and one hit a residential building. There were no fatalities," Sobyanin wrote, suggesting that the attack was "clearly planned to disrupt" the ongoing Russian parliamentary elections, voting in which is due to end on Sunday.
The Gazprom-MNPZ refinery sits southeast of Moscow city and is operated by the state-run energy giant Gazprom. The facility has a reported processing capacity of around 11 million tons of oil per year, making it one of the country's largest such sites.
Andriy Kovalenko, the head of the Counter-Disinformation Center operating as part of Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, said in a post to Telegram that a "major incident is occurring" at the refinery, which he said "supplies fuel to their capital city."
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a post to Telegram that Kyiv's long-range strikes "had a very significant impact in the Moscow region last night," reporting a hit on "one of Russia’s key oil industry facilities" which he said contributes "billions of dollars" to Russia's "war machine."
"Moscow must end its brutal war and choose peace instead of building layered rings of air defense at the expense of other regions," Zelenskyy wrote.
The Ukrainian president said that a variety of long-range munitions were used in the strikes. Among them, Zelenskyy said, were the Ukrainian-made Flamingo cruise missile and the Pelican ballistic missile -- seemingly the first time the latter has been used to attack Russia.
Ukrainian company Fire Point, which makes both munitions as well as other long-range drones and missiles, said in a post to Telegram that its FP-1 drones were used in the strike on the Moscow Oil Refinery.
The governor of the Moscow region, Andrey Vorobyov, reported in a post to Telegram that one person was killed and five others injured when a drone hit an apartment block in Sofino, to the southwest of Moscow city.
Another person was killed in the Orekhovo-Zuevsky area to the east of the capital, Vorobyov said, with one person also injured in the southern Leninsky district.
A total of 20 people were injured in the attacks, Vorobyov said.
Vorobyov also reported a fire at an apartment building in the Ramensky district to the southwest of the capital -- which prompted an evacuation of 400 people and damage to 20 cars -- a fire at a warehouse complex in Sofino and a "serious fire" at an apartment building in Kotelniki, southeast of Moscow.
All four of Moscow's international airports -- Vnukovo, Domodedovo, Zhukovsky and Sheremetyevo -- were put under temporary flight restrictions overnight, according to Rosaviatsiya, Russia's federal air transport agency. The restrictions were lifted on Sunday morning.
Russia's Defense Ministry said it shot down 1,110 Ukrainian drones overnight -- the largest overnight figure ever reported by the ministry, according to ABC News analysis of its Telegram statements.
Ukraine's air force, meanwhile, said Russia launched 138 drones into the country overnight, of which 101 were intercepted or otherwise suppressed. Around half of the drones launched were jet-powered, the air force said. Impacts were reported in 17 locations, the air force added.
Ukraine's State Emergency Service said that three people -- among them two children -- were killed in a Russian attack on the Kyiv region.
