Ukraine launches largest drone attack yet on Moscow, refinery hit again

Ukraine’s drones set off fires and flight chaos deep inside the Russian capital on Thursday, striking the Moscow Oil Refinery for a second time in a week and forcing all four major airports to suspend traffic. The attack also pushed the war’s economic damage into a facility that helps supply fuel to the Moscow region, underscoring how vulnerable the Kremlin’s rear areas have become.

Russia’s Defense Ministry said its air defenses intercepted 555 Ukrainian drones overnight across Russia and annexed Crimea, while Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said about 180 of the drones were headed toward the capital. Several reached the Moscow Oil Refinery in the Kapotnya district, southeast of central Moscow and about 15 kilometers from the Kremlin.

The refinery, owned by Gazprom Neft, is described as the largest fuel supplier to the Moscow region. It was hit again on June 18 after a June 16 drone strike set off a fire and halted operations. Reuters said a primary refining unit damaged in the earlier attack accounted for 53% of the plant’s capacity, a sign that the repeated strikes are targeting not just symbolism but output.

The consequences spread quickly beyond the refinery fence line. Reports said Vnukovo, Domodedovo, Zhukovsky and Sheremetyevo all temporarily suspended arrivals and departures, while Aeroflot and Rossiya were said to have canceled more than 170 flights and delayed more than 110 others. For a city that usually treats the war as something absorbed far from its daily routines, the shutdowns made the disruption visible to residents and travelers alike.

Volodymyr Zelensky said the strikes were a “fully justified response” to Russian attacks on Ukrainian cities and communities, and he warned that “Moscow will burn” if Russian strikes continued. The attack came after he held a coordination call with Donald Trump and Emmanuel Macron, as Kyiv sought support for a peace deal while continuing a wider campaign of pressure on Russia’s war infrastructure.

The scale of the drone barrage and the repeated hit on a refinery tied to Moscow’s fuel supply challenge the Kremlin’s effort to project control at home. With air defenses stretched across more than a dozen regions and a key plant near the capital forced back under attack, the costs of the war were once again being felt in plain view inside Russia’s political center.