Drones strike Moscow again as Russia claims air defenses repel attack
According to locals, explosions and air defense activity were heard in several parts of the city.
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Russian social media channels also claimed that drones approached targets from multiple directions. Smoke was reported in several areas.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin initially said that six drones heading toward Moscow had been downed. He later claimed that air defense forces had shot down more than 30 drones.
According to him, emergency crews were working at the sites where debris had allegedly fallen.
Previous attacks on Moscow
On the night of June 18 and into the morning, a wave of drone attacks struck Moscow, the Moscow region, and Russia's Rostov and Belgorod regions.
Despite Russian claims that dozens of drones had been intercepted, strikes were reported at the Moscow Oil Refinery, a fuel depot in Gukovo, and an industrial facility near Shebekino.
Sobyanin said that nearly 200 drones had been neutralized on their approach to Moscow by morning. However, some reportedly reached the refinery's grounds.
Russia's state news agency RIA Novosti described the attack as the largest on the Russian capital in the past two years.
Ukraine's General Staff later confirmed a successful strike on the Moscow Oil Refinery, reporting at least five separate fire outbreaks across the facility.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyi later described the strike on Moscow as a response to Russia's attack on the Kyiv-Pechersk Lavra. He also called on Europeans, Americans, and Russians to increase pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Earlier, on the night of June 16, Ukrainian drones had already targeted the Moscow refinery. According to Ukraine's General Staff, the facility supports the Russian military and has a refining capacity of more than 12 million tons of oil per year.
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19 of June 2026
