Attack included debut of new ballistic missile, Zelensky says
Ukraine struck Moscow with more than 1,000 drones and a newly developed ballistic missile on Sunday, the final day of Russia’s parliamentary elections, in what Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin described as the largest such attack on the Russian capital. The strike came as President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party was widely expected to win the vote and, according to Sobyanin, was intended to disrupt it.
Sobyanin said the Russian military shot down about 1,600 drones heading toward the capital region, including 450 that had been targeting the city itself. But he acknowledged that some drones reached their intended targets.
“Nevertheless, several drones reached the territory of the Moscow refinery, and one struck a residential building,” Sobyanin said, according to The New York Times as reported by UPI.
The attack killed two people and injured 20 others, CNN reported. The dead and wounded were not further identified in the immediate reporting.
Sobyanin said the timing left little doubt that the strike was intended to disrupt the vote. He added that among the areas targeted by the drones were four Ukrainian regions illegally annexed by Russia that were taking part in the Russian election. “The enemy did not succeed,” he said, according to UPI.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky confirmed the strikes and pointed to a new weapons system. “Our long-range responses had a very significant impact in the Moscow region last night,” Zelensky said. He added that the attack included the first combat use of a new ballistic missile designed to reach the interior of Russia.
Ukraine’s military said the primary target was the Gazpromneft-Moscow Oil Refinery in the capital. Zelensky did not link the strikes to the Russian election in his public remarks.
On the same day, Ukrainian officials said seven people died in Russian strikes in the Kyiv and Sumy regions.