Massive Ukrainian drone attack hits Moscow on final day of Russian elections; Russia reports two dead
Ukraine carried out one of its largest-ever drone attacks on Moscow and the surrounding region overnight, damaging an oil refinery and hitting residential buildings; Russian officials report two people killed as the country holds the final day of State Duma elections.
A large-scale drone attack
Overnight into Sunday, September 20, Ukraine launched a massive drone attack on Moscow and the Moscow region — according to Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, the largest such attack on the city since the start of the war. Sobyanin said that since the previous day, more than 1,600 drones had been "repelled across all defensive lines," including 450 shot down as they approached Moscow itself. Russia's Defense Ministry said 1,110 Ukrainian drones were shot down overnight across Russian regions, annexed Crimea and the Black Sea, though it did not disclose how many drones were launched in total.
Casualties and damage
Moscow region Governor Andrei Vorobyev reported two deaths — residents of the Orekhovo-Zuyevsky and Ramensky districts. He said around 20 people were injured, including three children (per Meduza), while BBC cited six injured — sources differ on the number of wounded. BBC reported that a 44-year-old woman died in the village of Sofyino when a drone hit a three-storey residential building, and an elderly man died after a private house was struck in the Orekhovo-Zuevo district.
The Moscow Oil Refinery in Kapotnya — one of Russia's largest and a key fuel supplier for the capital region — was damaged and caught fire. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed the strike on this "key" oil facility as well as a logistics site in the region, saying it represented "billions of dollars that sustain the war machine." Zelensky said Ukrainian forces also used Flamingo missiles alongside the drones, and that a facility in the Voronezh region was hit too. A drone struck a residential building near Orekhovy Boulevard in Moscow; in the Ramensky district, the roof of a 21-storey building caught fire, prompting the evacuation of about 400 people. Further damage was reported to residential buildings in Kotelniki, Ramenskoye, Kolomna, Yegoryevsk and several other towns, as well as to a warehouse complex in Sofyino. Moscow's Sheremetyevo, Vnukovo, Domodedovo and Zhukovsky airports briefly restricted flights, with around 100 flights delayed or cancelled.
Elections and wider context
The attack came on the third and final day of voting for Russia's State Duma — the first wartime parliamentary election, in which residents of Ukrainian territories annexed by Russia voted for the first time. Critics say the vote is neither free nor fair. Russian state media reported that an election official was killed in a drone strike on a bus in the Russian-controlled part of Ukraine's Kherson region.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian officials said Russian attacks on the Kyiv and Sumy regions killed eight people, including three children, on Saturday — among them a mother and her two children in Fastiv, and four people in the Sumy region when a drone hit their car. On Friday, US President Donald Trump signed a sanctions bill imposing tariffs of up to 100% on major buyers of Russian oil and gas, including China and India.
