Ukraine delivered a barrage of missiles and more than 1,000 drones on Russia, which Moscow is calling the “largest ever” of the war and an attack on its parliamentary elections.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy hailed the strike at the “dollars that support the war machine” as a push for Russia to “end its brutal war and choose peace.”
“Tonight in the Moscow region, our long-range responses were felt very acutely,” Zelenskyy wrote early Sunday morning on X. “One of the key enterprises of the Russian Federation’s oil industry and an aggressor’s logistics facility have been struck. These are billions of dollars that support the war machine.”
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Zelenskyy added that the Ukraine attack was a stern response to Russian aggression, making a future call for the U.S., Europe and the G7 to deliver “new sanctions.”
“This week alone, Russia has launched more than 2,000 attack drones against us, most of them jet-powered, as well as 1,700 aerial bombs and 19 missiles of various types,” he wrote on X. “Ukraine is constantly looking for and finding ways to defend itself and respond to these attacks on life.
“It is important that our partners also look for and find ways to make Russia feel its war. Now is the right moment to take new sanctions steps against the aggressor and force peace through strength. The United States has the means to do this, Europe has them, and so does every G7 country. We are counting on new, strong steps.”
The Kremlin was wrapping up the third and last day of its parliamentary elections this weekend and said two were killed and 20 wounded, according local Gov. Andrei Vorobyov.
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“The biggest attack by enemy drones has been repelled,” Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin wrote on Telegram. “This unprecedented attack was clearly planned with the aim of disrupting the elections. The enemy did not succeed.”
Russia’s Ministry of Defense said that its forces shot down a total of 1,110 Ukrainian drones across the country, as well as over the peninsula of Crimea and the waters of the Black Sea.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that 450 drones had been destroyed en route to the Russian capital, and that the attack had damaged the Moscow Oil Refinery and a residential building.
“Moscow must end its brutal war and choose peace instead of building layered rings of air defense at the expense of other regions,” Zelenskyy wrote in a second X post. “Steps toward de-escalation are on the table – in energy and food security. What is needed is political will. I thank everyone who is strengthening Ukraine’s long-range capabilities. I am grateful to everyone who complements our long-range responses with responses through sanctions.”
Ukraine continued to fend off Russian attacks, according to Zelenskyy. A Russian drone strike hit a monastery in Ukraine’s Kherson region Saturday, killing a member of the clergy and wounding four people, he said.
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A Russian attack on the Ukrainian capital of Kyiv also killed three children and their mother Saturday night, according to Tymur Tkachenko, head of the Kyiv regional state administration.
Ukraine’s latest drone strikes took place on the final day of Russia’s first wartime parliamentary election — balloting that has been virtually devoid of opposition to President Vladimir Putin’s policies.
Russia was also holding the vote in the four Ukrainian regions that Moscow claimed after the war began but still does not fully control, and in Crimea, the Black Sea peninsula that Russia invaded in 2014.
Putin accused Ukraine of trying to interfere in the election, citing what he said was a Ukrainian strike that killed an election official in her home in the Russian-controlled part of Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia region Tuesday. Reuters could not independently verify details of the attack and there was no comment from Kyiv.
Putin told the nation in a televised address before the election that the vote would underline support for Russian troops fighting in Ukraine.
“Your choice, and your will, will once again demonstrate that millions of people stand behind our soldiers, that we are a united people bound together by shared values, historical memory, and love for our homeland, and that no one will succeed in dividing or intimidating us,” Putin said.
The Associated Press and Reuters contributed to this report.
