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Drone barrage hits Moscow region as Russia holds wartime parliamentary vote

Ukraine launched more than 1,000 drones toward targets across Russia, including hundreds aimed at Moscow, according to Russian officials. The overnight barrage killed two people and injured 20 in the Moscow region, while Ukrainian officials said the strikes targeted oil and logistics infrastructure tied to the war.

Drone barrage hits Moscow region as Russia holds wartime parliamentary vote
Ukraine launched more than 1,000 drones at Russia overnight, including hundreds directed toward Moscow, Russian and Ukrainian officials said Sunday as Russia concluded a parliamentary election held during its invasion of Ukraine. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin called the attack on the capital unprecedented and said air defenses destroyed 450 drones before they reached the city. He reported damage to the Moscow Oil Refinery and a residential building. Andrei Vorobyov, governor of the surrounding Moscow region, said two people were killed and 20 wounded. The victims were identified as a 74-year-old man and a 44-year-old woman. Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces had shot down 1,100 Ukrainian drones across the country, as well as over Crimea and the Black Sea. Officials’ battlefield claims could not be independently verified. Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Kyiv used drones and several types of missiles, including domestically produced Flamingo and Pelican missiles. He said the attacks targeted oil and logistics facilities that help finance Russia’s military campaign. “These are billions of dollars that sustain the war machine,” Zelenskyy said in a social media post. The strikes came as Russia wrapped up its first parliamentary election held during the full-scale war. Opposition to President Vladimir Putin’s policies was largely absent from the ballot, and the vote is expected to reinforce the Kremlin’s political control. Russia also conducted voting in Crimea and in four Ukrainian regions that Moscow claims to have annexed but does not fully control. Ukraine has condemned those elections as illegal. Sobyanin said the attack was intended to disrupt voting in Moscow but claimed it had failed to do so. The barrage reflects the expanding use of long-range drones by Ukraine, which has developed a domestic weapons industry capable of striking deep inside Russia. Kyiv has increasingly sought to impose economic and psychological costs on Russian civilians while pressuring the Kremlin toward negotiations. Putin has shown no indication that he plans to end the invasion. The two countries have continued trading long-range airstrikes even as ground combat along the roughly 1,250-kilometer front in eastern and southern Ukraine has slowed. Large numbers of drones and ground robots now threaten troop movements and complicate operations along the front.

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