Ukraine on Thursday 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 authorities.
Unverified videos on social media purported to show large columns of black smoke over the city's skyline, while another showed drones buzzing overhead.
The attack on the Moscow oil refinery was a "fully justified response to Russian attacks on our cities and communities", President Volodymyr Zelensky said. Kyiv also struck targets in Russia's Rostov region and in the occupied territories of Ukraine, Zelensky added in a post on X.
"We don't want this war, we never did, and everyone knows it, and our partners know it," Zelensky said later in a voice message sent to reporters on a WhatsApp group.
"But if Ukraine burns, your Moscow will burn."
The large-scale attack came hours before Russian President Vladimir Putin was set to meet Southeast Asian leaders at a summit in the central city of Kazan, about 700 kilometres east of the capital.
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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.
"Air defence forces are continuing to repel a large-scale attack. Several drones managed to reach the MNPZ (Moscow Oil Refinery)," Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin wrote on Telegram, with authorities closing traffic on streets near the refinery.
He did not specify damage to the facility, but several Russian media outlets reported that it was on fire.
Russia's busiest airport – Moscow's Sheremetyevo – announced it had evacuated passengers to "safe locations" during the barrage and was restricting flights.
Another drone crashed into an apartment building in the Moscow region district of Zhukovsky, while drone debris sparked a fire at a shopping centre near the capital's suburbs, Moscow region governor Andrey Vorobyov said.
Russian air defences shot down 180 drones on approach to Moscow, Sobyanin said, while the Russian defence ministry reported it had intercepted more than 500 Ukrainian drones overnight.
The attack was the largest on Moscow in at least two years, Russia's state TASS news agency reported.
Read moreRussian attacks across Ukraine kill several, set renowned Kyiv monastery ablaze
Since the war began in 2022, Russia has pummelled Ukraine with near-daily aerial barrages of drones and missiles.
At least 10 people were killed on Monday across Ukraine in a drone and missile attack that damaged the 1,000-year-old Kyiv Pechersk Lavra monastery. Russia has denied being responsible for hitting the monastery, alleging that Ukraine's own air defences had misfired and caused the damage.
Kyiv came under the second air attack this week as Russia unleashed ballistic missiles on the Ukrainian capital, city officials said.
"The enemy is attacking the capital with ballistic missiles. Stay in safe places until the air raid alert is over!" Tymur Tkachenko, the head of Kyiv's military administration, said in a Telegram post early on Thursday, without providing details.
A Reuters witness heard explosions in Kyiv, and authorities in the northeastern Ukrainian city of Sumy said one person was killed in a drone attack. Air strike alerts were issued for most of Ukraine's territory.
Putin in Kazan
The attack came just hours before Putin was set to host Southeast Asian leaders at a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in the central city of Kazan.
Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia and Singapore sent their prime ministers, while the Philippines sent President Ferdinand Marcos.
Putin has long sought to project stability in Russia, despite the economic and social effects of his four-year offensive on Ukraine.
Russia's economy – on a war footing throughout the conflict – is struggling with high inflation, a labour shortage caused by record unemployment levels, and high borrowing costs.
The advance of forces on the Ukrainian battlefield has slowed this year, while Kyiv has multiplied attacks on Russian soil.
At a summit of the G7 in France earlier this week, US President Donald Trump said Moscow should "make a deal" to end the Ukraine war.
Putin has repeatedly refused offers for face-to-face talks with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, saying that Moscow intends to capture Ukraine's eastern Donbas region by force.
Russia's 2022 offensive on 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.
(FRANCE 24 with AFP and Reuters)
