Over 450 Drones Targeted Moscow On Final Day Of Russia's Parliamentary Election

Over 450 drones targeted Moscow as Russia held the final day of its parliamentary election on Sunday, September 20, with the massive overnight assault killing two people and damaging a major oil refinery. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said more than 1,600 drones had been intercepted since Saturday, including 450 headed towards the capital.

Sobyanin described it as the “largest ever” drone attack on Moscow and accused Ukraine of attempting to disrupt the tightly controlled election. “The unprecedented attack was clearly planned with the aim of disrupting the elections. The enemy did not succeed,” he said in a Telegram post. Ukraine has not commented on the latest strikes.

The three day parliamentary election began on September 18 and ends Sunday. Russians are voting to elect all 450 members of the State Duma, the lower house of parliament. It is the first parliamentary election since Russia launched its full scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. President Vladimir Putin has presented the vote as a demonstration of support for Russian troops, saying “millions of people stand behind our fighters” and describing Russians as a “united people.”

Voting is also being held in Ukrainian territories that Moscow claims to have annexed, including parts of Donetsk, Luhansk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, as well as Crimea. Kyiv has rejected the voting there as illegal.

In the Moscow region, Governor Andrey Vorobyov said a 44 year old woman and a 74 year old man were killed, while 20 people were injured. A fire caused after a drone crashed into a 21 storey residential building led to around 400 people, including 70 children, being evacuated.

Several drones reached the Moscow Oil Refinery, damaging part of the facility. The attack comes as Ukraine has intensified its long range drone campaign against Russia's energy infrastructure. Ukrainian strikes have disrupted Russian oil refining, contributing to fuel shortages, higher prices and queues at petrol stations.

The strikes came despite US President Donald Trump's statement earlier this week that Russia and Ukraine had agreed not to target each other's energy facilities. Russia has also reported cyberattacks on its online voting systems during the election.