“If Ukraine burns, your Moscow will burn too”: this is the message of Volodymyr Zelensky after the Russian capital was targeted on the night between Wednesday and Thursday by the largest attack in the last two years, with the launch of 180 drones by Ukrainian forces. Bombings hit again and started a fire for the second time in three days in Moscow’s main refinery, south-east of the city center, but also an apartment building and shopping centers, according to what was reported by local authorities.
Moscow: «The attacks push back a Putin-Zelensky summit»
Russian presidential advisor Yuri Ushakov warned that “all this certainly does not favor” a summit between Russian President Vladimir Putin and Zelensky, repeatedly requested by the latter to put an end to the conflict. And Foreign Minister Serghei Lavrov promised that, in response to the Ukrainian raids, Russian forces will continue “large-scale attacks on a regular basis against targets that have a direct impact on the combat capability of the Armed Forces of Ukraine.”
The Gazprom refinery hit, the capital’s airports closed
According to the Ministry of Defense, 555 drones were launched across Russia, making the latest attack the second largest since the beginning of the conflict. All four of Moscow’s international airports were closed to traffic for hours. And all this while in the city of Kazan, 700 kilometers to the east, Putin was taking part in a summit with the 11 ASEAN countries, interested in maintaining commercial relations with Russia, seen as a secure energy supplier. After the Ukrainian attacks, large columns of black smoke rose from the Gazprom refinery located in Kapotnya, on the outskirts of Moscow.
After several hours, the mayor, Serghei Sobyanin, said the flames had largely been put out.
Injuries and damage in Russian regions
The governor of the capital region, Andrey Vorobyov, gave a toll of 17 injured, including two children aged 3 and 10. Russian sources also reported damage to two shopping centers and a residential tower in the south-eastern suburbs, not far from the refinery.
As well as the killing of a man in a Ukrainian raid in the Rostov region and the wounding of two girls aged 10 and 11 when the car in which they were traveling with their mother was hit in the Bryansk region.
Zelensky: «Russians must understand the price of war»
According to Zelensky, the Ukrainian attacks, which now regularly target refineries and other oil infrastructure even hundreds of kilometers from the border, are aimed at making the “Russian people” understand that “one man, Putin, is waging this war while ordinary people pay the full price”.
“In recent days, all our partners have noted the precision and effectiveness of our attacks”, added the Ukrainian president, who at the G7 summit received the common commitment of the Europeans and the USA to continue “unwavering military and political support” for Ukraine.
The diplomatic clash between Moscow, G7 and NATO
According to Moscow, however, this was the result of the fact that American President Donald Trump was “filled with useless, if not harmful” ideas by the Europeans.
The latter “clearly insist that the war must continue, and are guided by the completely incorrect and false premise that the situation on the battlefield is supposedly changing in favor of the Ukrainian forces, which is categorically false,” said advisor Ushakov. NATO Secretary General Mark Rutte, however, declares himself convinced that “Ukraine is changing the balance on the battlefield and inflicting enormous losses on Russia”.
But it will be able to continue to do so, added Rutte at the end of the Defense ministerial, “only if we intensify our support, not only for immediate needs, such as air defense, but also by evaluating how we can collaborate in the long term to ensure that Ukraine can remain sovereign, free and secure”.
Russian raids on Ukraine: victims and injured
Meanwhile, Ukraine also continues to be targeted by Russian raids. Also during the night between Wednesday and Thursday, the country was attacked by seven missiles and 239 drones, according to the Kiev Air Force. Two people were killed and 17 injured in Dnipropetrovsk and one man died in the Sumy region, according to local authorities.