Ukrainian drones hit Moscow oil refinery and residential building – video
Moscow oil refinery struck in Ukraine’s biggest air raid on city since start of war. Kyiv says attack, which also forced evacuation at Russia’s biggest airport, was in response to strike on historic monastery.
Ukrainian drones have hit several locations across Moscow in Kyiv’s biggest air raid on the city since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, setting a major oil refinery on fire and forcing evacuations at the country’s largest airport.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy described the attack as a response to Russia’s strike on a historic Kyiv monastery complex earlier this week. “We do not want this war and never did,” the Ukrainian president said in a voice message to journalists. “But if Ukraine is going to burn, your Moscow will burn too … it is time to end the aggression, time to end this war.”
Russia’s foreign minister in turn announced it would launch huge “group strikes” on Ukraine “on a regular basis” in response to the Moscow raid. The scale of Ukraine’s long-range attack, apparently designed to shut down operations at the key oil refinery in the Kapotnya area, caught most people by surprise in a city that does not typically warn residents with air raid alarms, and prompted panicked messages on social media.
According to reports, many residents in Moscow’s outlying suburbs learned of the attack only when they saw drones flying overhead. “No SMS at all, no sirens. All the information is in local chats – there’s a lot more there than on TV,” a Moscow resident said in a message to the independent, foreign-based Russian news site Meduza.
Footage posted online showed three plumes of smoke rising from the Kapotnya refinery. The strike was the second in two days on the facility, which local authorities claimed injured at least 17 people, including two children. The refinery, one of Moscow’s most important energy facilities, supplies up to 40% of the capital’s petrol and about 50% of its diesel fuel.
Russia said its air defence systems intercepted and destroyed 555 Ukrainian drones over multiple regions overnight. The number actually shot down could not be independently confirmed.
Vladimir Putin is in Kazan, 430 miles (700km) east of Moscow, hosting leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations as Russia seeks to bolster business and other ties.
Kyiv was hit this week by a major strike of ballistic missiles and drones in a marked escalation of the air war. Putin had warned of impending “systemic strikes” on Ukraine.
The Moscow attack came hours after Zelenskyy said he had held “an important coordination call” with the presidents of the US and France and had won vital pledges of further support from this week’s international G7 summit.
European leaders are optimistic about Ukraine’s prospects. Ahead of a summit on Thursday evening in Brussels, the European Commission president, Ursula von der Leyen, said the tide was turning. “We see Ukraine is holding the line, even partially regaining territory,” she said, adding that Russia was struggling and imposing “a digital iron curtain on their people” – a reference to internet censorship.
Arriving in Brussels for talks with EU leaders, Zelenskyy said it was “really a great moment for Ukraine”, hailing the decision to start formal membership talks with the bloc earlier this week. He said he hoped they could discuss further support for Ukraine to pressure Putin to the negotiating table.
The European Council president, António Costa, was reported by Bloomberg on Wednesday to have contacted the Kremlin in an attempt to engage Putin in discussions about ending the war. A spokesperson for Costa has not commented. An EU official told the Guardian that in the past few weeks “brief contacts at diplomatic level” had been made “to open communication channels, but nothing was discussed on substance”. The official said that in any future scenario, “the EU has specific interests that will need to be defended, therefore it is important to have established diplomatic channels with Russia”.
Zelenskyy was expected to discuss with European leaders the possibility of a system to defend against ballistic missiles. Russia has repeatedly struck Ukraine with those types of missiles, which air defences struggle to counter.
The British defence secretary, Dan Jarvis, announced on Thursday at a meeting of western allies in Brussels that the UK would pay £750m to supply Kyiv with a further 150,000 Ukrainian-made drones and more than 350 air defence missiles. The funding comes from a £2.26bn loan taken out against the interest generated by Russian central bank assets frozen since the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022.
Footage of the Moscow strikes appeared to show the use of Ukrainian Bars hybrid drone-cruise missiles, first used last year. They had been believed to have a range of about 350-500 miles, designed for precision targeting, but their use against Moscow would suggest a longer range.
Ukraine is rapidly catching up with Russia in its ability to mass-produce long-range strike weapons. Kyiv 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 conflict remain stalled.
At least seven drones appear to have beaten Russia’s air defences, including one that appeared to hit a high-rise building in Zhukovsky district. Traffic was halted on Moscow’s ring road near the refinery, the broadcaster RIA cited the interior ministry as saying, while air traffic was disrupted at Vnukovo, Sheremetyevo and Zhukovsky airports.
Footage posted on social media appeared to show a Russian portable air defence system operator attempting to shoot down a Ukrainian strike drone moments before it struck the oil refinery. A strike on Tuesday was understood to have already halted operations at the Kapotnya refinery, adding to widespread damage to Russian energy facilities and extending a fuel crisis deeper into the country.
Russia, the world’s third biggest oil producer and a major oil and fuel exporter, is to import fuel by sea this month as it seeks to manage a shortage after extensive Ukrainian drone attacks on its refineries.
Russian hardliners called for Moscow to retaliate, with some urging the Kremlin to consider using nuclear weapons against Ukraine. “What else has to happen before we start fighting for real?” wrote the ultraconservative billionaire Konstantin Malofeev on Telegram. “Why aren’t we using the nuclear weapons that our ancestors created and stockpiled through the efforts of the entire country precisely for moments like this?” Andrey Gurulyov, a retired lieutenant general and state duma deputy, called for Russia to “strike the enemy mercilessly” in response to the attack. “We need to strengthen our air defence system, but most importantly, we need to hit the enemy,” he told RTVI. “Hit the enemy mercilessly, without overthinking it.”
Russia launched more than 200 drones and multiple ballistic missiles at Ukraine between late Wednesday and early Thursday, according to the Ukrainian air force.
Additional reporting by Dan Sabbagh; Reuters and AP contributed to this report.
