Ukraine’s largest drone attack engulfs Moscow in smoke

This morning, Ukraine launched its largest aerial assault on Russia since the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022. Fire and thick smoke engulfed the skies over Moscow after Ukrainian long-range drones struck one of the country’s largest oil refineries for the second time this week. 

The Moscow refinery, which belongs to the state-owned energy firm Gazprom, has a processing capacity of nearly 12 million tonnes of crude oil per year. Footage shared on social media captured a powerful blast that sent an oil storage tank lid flying into the air and at least five separate fires breaking out across the site. Another video showed Russia’s soldiers firing portable shoulder-launched missiles at incoming drones with little to no success. Flights to and from all four of Moscow’s airports were suspended. However, it didn’t stop Russia’s defence ministry from claiming that its air forces had intercepted and destroyed almost 1,000 Ukrainian drones and four cruise missiles across the country. 

Volodymyr Zelensky hailed the strike ‘a fully justified response’ to Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities and communities. ‘It is time the war ended,’ he wrote on X as he called on Moscow to return to diplomacy. The Ukrainian President previously offered to meet Vladimir Putin in a neutral location for bilateral talks on ending the war. The Kremlin rejected the proposal, insisting instead that Zelensky come to Moscow. Putin’s aide, Yuri Ushakov, said today that the Ukrainian strikes on Russia don’t bring the meeting between Putin and Zelensky any closer – as if it had been close to taking place at all. 

Kyiv’s retaliation comes three days after Russia launched another mass aerial attack that killed five people in Kyiv and five rescue workers in a double-tap strike on Kharkiv. In the Ukrainian capital, a Russian drone set ablaze the roof of the 11th-century Dormition Cathedral – part of the Unesco-listed Pechersk Lavra monastery complex. Zelensky called the attack ‘one of the biggest Russian crimes against Christian culture today’ and showed pictures of the burning cathedral to Donald Trump at the G7 summit in France yesterday. The sight of the destruction reportedly ‘touched’ Trump, pushing the US President to sign a joint declaration offering firmer support to Ukraine. 

Today’s attack only underscored Ukraine’s growing ability to inflict pain on Russia with homemade weapons. Zelensky made it clear that the strikes will continue until Putin returns to the negotiating table, saying: ‘If Ukraine is burning, your Moscow will burn too.’ Kyiv hopes the day will soon come when the Russian President realises that continuing the war is more humiliating for his country than ending it. After all, the minimum Ukraine is asking for is to freeze the fighting along the current frontline and then talk, talk and talk.