Ukraine launches its largest drone attack on Moscow, hitting an oil refinery
Ukraine sent waves of drones into Russia on June 18, striking the Moscow Oil Refinery for the second time in a week and sending black smoke over the capital in what NPR described as the largest attack on the Moscow region since Russia’s full-scale invasion more than four years ago. The barrage targeted more than a dozen Russian regions; Moscow’s public prosecutor reported damage to apartment buildings in several districts and unspecified casualties.
Russia’s defense ministry said it destroyed roughly 555 drones overnight, about 180 of them as they approached Moscow. The targeted refinery accounts for more than a third of fuel supply for the capital region, and commercial flights were disrupted. Kyiv cast the strike as retaliation for recent Russian attacks on a historic Kyiv monastery that drew international condemnation.
The pattern matters more than any single building: Ukraine has shifted toward sustained strikes on Russian refining capacity, which both squeezes the revenue funding the war and brings the cost home to Moscow residents who had been largely insulated from it. President Volodymyr Zelenskyy paired the attack with a public push to end the war, signaling the strikes are leverage rather than an end in themselves.