Ukraine sets Moscow refinery ablaze in biggest attack in years

MOSCOW, June 19 ------ Ukraine launched its largest drone attack on Moscow in years, sparking fires in and around Russia’s capital, hitting a major oil refinery and forcing evacuations at the country’s largest airport, officials said.

Agence France-Presse (AFP) reporters saw large columns of black smoke spreading over the capital’s southern skyline in dramatic scenes, while flames could be seen burning on part of an oil complex in the southern Kapotnya district. A strong, unpleasant smell hung in the air, as the fire burned at the refinery through the morning. The strikes came as Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted Southeast Asian leaders at a summit in the central city of Kazan, about 700 kilometers (435 miles) east of Moscow.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky praised the strikes in a post on social media, calling them a “fully justified response” to Russian attacks on Ukraine. The attack was the largest on Moscow in at least two years, Russia’s state TASS news agency reported.

It is also the second time this month that Kyiv has launched a major attack during an international summit after striking Saint Petersburg at the start of a landmark economic forum near the northwestern city. All of Moscow’s airports were shut for hours, leading to hundreds of flight delays. “Several drones managed to reach the MNPZ (Moscow Oil Refinery),” Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin wrote on Telegram early on Thursday, without specifying damage to the facility. Authorities announced they had closed traffic on streets nearby.

Another drone crashed into an apartment building in the Moscow-region district of Zhukovsky, while drone debris sparked a fire at a shopping center near the capital suburbs, said Andrey Vorobyov, the region’s governor. One social media video showed smoke pouring from the upper floors of an apartment block, while a woman behind the camera could be heard weeping in distress.

‘Long-range sanctions’

Russian air defenses shot down around 180 drones on approach to Moscow, Sobyanin said, while the defense ministry reported it had intercepted more than 500 Ukrainian drones across the entire country overnight. A separate Ukrainian drone strike on Russia’s southern Rostov region left one person dead and at least two injured, the region’s governor said.

Kyiv has stepped up its drone strikes on Russia in recent months, hitting oil refineries that fund Moscow’s war chest, as diplomatic talks on ending the more than four-year conflict remains stalled. It was the second Ukrainian strike on the Moscow refinery this week. Zelensky calls the attacks Kyiv’s “long-range sanctions.” “It is time the war ended, and Russia must take the necessary steps in diplomacy,” he said. Russia also launched more than 200 drones and multiple ballistic missiles at Ukraine between late Wednesday and early Thursday, said the Ukrainian air force.

Source: manilatimes.net