Ukraine just fired its biggest drone attack ever at Moscow on election day

Ukraine just fired its biggest drone attack of the war at Moscow.

And it landed on the final day of Russia's election.

Sergei Sobyanin, Moscow's Mayor, says more than 1,600 drones have been shot down since Saturday. 450 of those were heading straight for the capital.

That's the biggest number Moscow has ever reported.

Three people are dead. Andrey Vorobyov, the governor of the Moscow region, says two died in the attack itself. A third died later in hospital. Twenty more were hurt, including three children.

One drone hit a 21-storey building and started a fire. 400 people had to be evacuated.

And a Moscow oil refinery got hit too.

Sobyanin didn't name it. But Ukraine's General Staff did. They say the target was the Gazpromneft-Moscow Oil Refinery, in the Kapotnya district. It's one of Russia's biggest refineries by volume. Ukraine has hit this same refinery before.

Volodymyr Zelensky, Ukraine's President, didn't deny any of it. He posted on X that Ukraine's quote "long-range responses had a very significant impact in the Moscow region" overnight. He says an oil facility and a logistics facility got hit, both worth billions of dollars, both part of what he called the war machine.

So Ukraine's president is taking credit for this. On the record. On election day.

Sobyanin says Russia stopped it anyway. He wrote on Telegram that the attack was quote "clearly planned with the aim of disrupting the elections", and that it didn't work.

But three people are dead. And a refinery is on fire. So the vote went ahead anyway. That's the part Russia is choosing to focus on.

Here's why this election matters. It's the first parliamentary vote since Russia's full invasion began in February 2022. Putin has called it a test of support for the war. Turnout closed at 56.66 per cent. United Russia, Putin's party, is projected to win comfortably.

And there was barely any opposition to vote for. Yabloko was the only registered party that had criticised the war. Russia's Supreme Court pulled it off the party-list ballot last month. A few of its candidates are still running in individual seats.