Ukrainian forces fired more than 1,000 drones at Russia overnight, including hundreds that were launched toward Moscow, officials said Sunday as the Kremlin wrapped up the third and final day of its parliamentary elections. Moscow’s mayor described the drone wave as the “largest ever” attack on the Russian capital and said there had been damage to a Moscow oil refinery and a residential building. Across the Moscow region, the attack killed two people and wounded 20, local governor Andrei Vorobyov said. The dead were a 74-year-old man and a 44-year-old woman, he said. Writing on social media, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said kyiv had used a variety of missiles and drones in the attack, including the domestically-made Flamingo and Pelican missiles, to attack oil and logistics facilities. “These are billions of dollars supporting the war machine,” Zelenskyy said, referring to the financial pressure kyiv hopes to exert. The economy of Russia. Ukraine also continued to defend itself against Russian attacks, Zelenskyy said. A Russian drone strike hit a monastery in Ukraine’s Kherson region on Saturday, killing a member of the clergy and wounding four people, it said. A Russian attack on the Ukrainian capital also killed two children and their mother on Saturday night, said Tymur Tkachenko, head of the kyiv regional state administration. He later said that another child wounded in the same attack had died in hospital on Sunday. The US State Department said on Friday it had approved a possible sale of air defense equipment to Ukraine worth $2.68 billion. The news came as President Trump signed a bill introducing new sanctions designed to pressure Russia over its war in Ukraine, after Congress gave its approval after months of delay. Trump and Zelenskyy spoke on Sunday and agreed to meet in New York, the Ukrainian president said on social media. “This meeting could change a lot. There is a diplomatic push,” he said. “There are ideas to reduce tensions and address fundamental security issues: energy security, food security and protection of human life. We are working together with the American team and we are ready to take really serious measures.” Russia votes in uncontested election The attack took place on the final day of Russia’s first wartime parliamentary elections, a vote that has seen virtually no opposition to President Vladimir Putin’s policies and is sure to cement the Kremlin’s dominance. Russia also held the vote in the four Ukrainian regions that Moscow illegally annexed after the war began but still does not fully control, and in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that was illegally annexed by Russia in 2014. kyiv has denounced the move as illegal. Russia’s Defense Ministry said its forces shot down a total of 1,110 Ukrainian drones across the country, as well as over Ukraine’s annexed Crimea peninsula and Black Sea waters. Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said 450 drones had been destroyed en route to the Russian capital and that the attack had damaged the Moscow oil refinery and a residential building. He said the “unprecedented attack” on Moscow was an attempt to disrupt the election. “The enemy failed in this regard,” he said. Since the Russian invasion more than four years ago, Ukraine has become a world leader in military drone technology, deploying domestically produced long-range drones along with missiles for strikes deep inside Russia. Its drone technology has impressed governments and defense manufacturers around the world. kyiv aims to make the Russian public feel the consequences of the war and pressure Russian President Vladimir Putin to negotiate a peace deal. So far, Putin has given no signs that he intends to stop the invasion. Instead, Moscow and kyiv have become embroiled in an escalating duel of long-range airstrikes as fighting along the roughly 1,250-kilometer (780-mile) front line in eastern and southern Ukraine has slowed, constrained by large numbers of drones and ground robots that threaten troop movements. Go deeper with The Free Press
