Ukraine hits Moscow with ‘largest ever’ drone attack
Major oil refinery in Russian capital set ablaze as voting draws to a close in stage-managed parliamentary elections
Flames and smoke are seen rising from an oil refinery in Moscow. Photograph: UGC via AP
Max Seddon
Mon Sept 21 2026
Ukraine has hit Moscow with what local authorities said was the largest ever drone attack on the capital, setting a major oil refinery ablaze and killing at least two people, as voting in Russia’s stage-managed parliamentary elections entered its final day.
Moscow’s mayor Sergei Sobyanin said air defences shot down 450 drones as they approached the capital on Saturday night, calling the attack “unprecedented”.
Sobyanin said the attack was “clearly planned to disrupt the elections”, adding that “the enemy did not succeed”.
Several drones hit the Moscow Refinery in the south of the capital, one of Russia’s largest.
Russia’s parliamentary election for the first time included residents of regions that Moscow illegally annexed from Ukraine after the start of its full-scale invasion more than 4 1/2 years ago.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)
And a few days earlier:
Vladimir Putin humiliated as he struggles to vote in Russia’s ‘fixed’ election
Voting for the already predetermined election is underway.
Retired, living in the Scottish Borders after living most of my life in cities in England. I can now indulge my interest in all aspects of living close to nature in a wild landscape. I live on what was once the Iapetus Ocean which took millions of years to travel from the Southern Hemisphere to here in the Northern Hemisphere. That set me thinking and questioning and seeking answers.
In 1998 I co-wrote Millennium Countdown (US)/ A Business Guide to the Year 2000 (UK) see https://www.abebooks.co.uk/products/isbn/9780749427917
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