Moscow targeted by ‘largest ever’ drone attack on final day of Russia’s parliamentary election

A building in Kotelniki in the Moscow region that was hit by what authorities said was a Ukrainian drone on September 20, 2026. Stringer/Reuters Moscow’s mayor says Ukraine carried out its “largest ever” attack on the Russian capital and the surrounding area as voting in parliamentary elections entered the final day. More than 1,000 drones were launched, killing at least two people and damaging a major oil refinery. Mayor Sergei Sobyanin linked the attack to the vote, saying it “was clearly planned with the aim of disrupting the elections.” “The enemy did not succeed,” he said. Sunday is the third and final day of Russia’s first parliamentary elections since the start of its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022. In the absence of any credible opposition, President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party is widely expected to win. Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky praised the attack against Russia in a statement on Telegram, but he did not mention the election. Among the areas voting are four Ukrainian regions illegally annexed by Russia but not fully under the Kremlin’s control. “Our long-range responses had a very significant impact in the Moscow region last night,” Zelensky said, adding that the facilities that were targeted were bringing in “billions of dollars that sustain the war machine.” Ukrainian General Staff said later that the main target of the attack was the Gazpromneft-Moscow Oil Refinery in the Kapotnya district of the Russian capital. The facility is one of the largest refineries in the country in terms of volume. The attack against Moscow was one of the largest Ukraine has mounted against the capital. The Russian Ministry of Defense said 1,110 Ukrainian drones and other unmanned aerial vehicles were intercepted and destroyed overnight. Meanwhile, Sobyanin, the Moscow mayor, said that more than 1,600 drones had been shot down across Russia since Saturday, and that 450 of them were approaching the capital city. “Nevertheless, several drones reached the territory of the Moscow Refinery, and one struck a residential building,” he said. The governor of the wider Moscow region, Andrey Vorobiev, said two people were killed and 20, including three children, were injured in the attacks overnight. At the same time, Russia continued attacking Ukraine with drones and missiles. Tymur Tkachenko, the head of the Kyiv region military administration, said attacks overnight into Sunday killed three children and one woman. Russia has been hammering Ukraine, and Kyiv in particular, with near constant aerial attacks for almost a month now. Zelensky said on Sunday that this week alone, Russia launched more than 2,000 attack drones, 1,700 aerial bombs and 19 missiles of various types against Ukraine.