Ukraine sets Moscow refinery ablaze in biggest attack in years

MOSCOW – Ukraine on June 18 launched its largest drone attack on Moscow in years, sparking fires in and around the capital, hitting a major oil refinery and forcing evacuations at the country’s largest airport, officials said.

At least 17 people were wounded in the strikes, which also set a shopping centre and apartment building ablaze, according to the authorities.

AFP reporters saw large columns of black smoke spreading over the capital’s southern skyline in dramatic scenes, while drops of rain mixed with soot fell from the sky.

The strikes came as Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted South-east Asian leaders at a summit in the central city of Kazan, about 700km east of the capital.

Putin did not comment on the strikes as he spoke at the summit.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said they were an “absolutely justified response” to deadly strikes on Kyiv – including an attack earlier this week on a landmark cathedral and a UNESCO-protected 11th-century monastery.

He wanted Russians to blame Putin for the consequences of Europe’s worst war since World War II.

“The main thing is that the people of Russia begin to feel that it is one man, Putin, who is waging this war, while ordinary people pay the price for everything,” Zelensky told reporters, including AFP.

Moscow has hit Ukraine with daily barrages of missiles and drones.

Kyiv said on June 18 that one person was killed and nine others were wounded in a Russian attack on the city of Dnipro.

Airport closures

It is the second time in June that Kyiv has launched a major attack during an international summit, after striking St Petersburg at the start of a landmark economic forum near the city.

All of Moscow’s airports were shut for hours on June 18, leading to hundreds of flight delays.

The country’s busiest – Sheremetyevo – announced it had evacuated passengers to “safe locations” during the barrage, before it re-opened at around 11am local time (4pm Singapore time).

Konstantin, a pedestrian in a Moscow park, told AFP he had “never seen anything like it”.

Valentina, a 29-year-old manager walking with her daughter in front of the giant column of black smoke, said she was woken up by the noise.

“It’s really scary,” she told AFP.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that “several drones” had reached the oil refinery, without specifying damage to the facility. The authorities announced they had closed traffic on streets nearby.

Another drone crashed into an apartment building, while drone debris sparked a fire at a shopping centre near the capital’s suburbs.

One social media video showed smoke pouring from the upper floors of an apartment block, while a woman behind the camera can be heard weeping in distress.

‘Long-range sanctions’

Russian air defences shot down around 180 drones on approach to Moscow, Sobyanin said, while the Defence 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 remain stalled.

It was the second Ukrainian strike on the Moscow refinery this week.

Zelensky describes the attacks as 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 June 17 and early June 18, according to the Ukrainian air force.

AFP reporters in Kyiv saw people rushing to shelters in the early hours after air-defence blasts rocked the Ukrainian capital.

Putin in Kazan

In the hours following the attack, Putin posed for a photo with leaders at the ASEAN-Russia Commemorative Summit in Kazan.

Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia and Singapore sent their prime ministers to Kazan, while the Philippines sent President Ferdinand Marcos.

Putin has long sought to project stability in Russia, despite the economic and social effects of his offensive against Ukraine.

But a recent spate of attacks has forced the Kremlin to respond.

After Kyiv launched similar attacks on St Petersburg during Putin’s flagship economic conference earlier in June, the Russian leader promised to bolster air defences.

And Russia’s federal aviation regulator introduced a ban on civilian drones and light aircraft around Moscow’s airspace earlier this week, amid the strikes.

The Russian authorities restrict the publishing of pictures and videos from sites hit by Ukrainian drones, and state media has yet to publish any imagery from the scene of the attack.

At a summit of the Group of Seven in France earlier this week, US President Donald Trump said Moscow should “make a deal” to end the Ukraine war as Russia’s advances have slowed.

Putin has repeatedly refused offers for face-to-face talks with Zelensky, saying that Moscow intends to capture Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region by force.

Russia’s offensive against Ukraine has become Europe’s deadliest conflict since World War II, with hundreds of thousands killed and large parts of eastern and southern Ukraine ravaged by fighting. AFP