Putin reeling as Moscow burns after ferocious Ukraine drone attacks

Ukrainian drones struck an oil depot south of Moscow, sparking a major fire in the latest overnight aerial bombardment. Russia‘s Defence Ministry claimed to have shot down 193 drones across the country, as Kyiv continues to target energy infrastructure and military-industrial sites.

Moscow’s mayor Sergey Sobyanin said air defence systems had taken down 36 drones heading towards Russia‘s capital city. However, some still made it to their targets, with one UAV crashing into an oil depot in the city of Sepukhov in the Moscow region. Video images of the strike were soon posted to social media channels by local residents and showed a major fire engulfing the premises of the oil depot.

Ukraine has remorselessly targeted oil refineries across Russia in an attempt to disrupt fuel supplies to Putin’s army, as well as deprive the Kremlin of vital income from energy exports.

The attacks have caused a fuel crisis in many parts of the country, with motorists waiting for hours in queues stretching back many kilometres at petrol stations.

Russian Telegram channels reported that residents in several Moscow suburbs—including Domodedovo, Podolsk, Dubna, and Troitsk—reported hearing explosions.

Flights were briefly suspended at Zhukovsky and Domodedovo airports, where five flights were cancelled and six were delayed.

A fire was also reported in a wooded area of Kommunarka, within the city limits. However, local officials refused to clarify the cause of the blaze.

This was the second major drone attack on Moscow in a month. In late September, air defences shot down 41 drones over two days. The largest strike on the capital to date occurred in May, when 109 UAVs were intercepted over two and a half days.

In the Kursk region, a fire broke out near a power substation in the city of Rylsk after what local authorities claimed was a Ukrainian drone strike.

“As a result of the UAV attack, outbuildings caught fire near a house located close to the substation. Fire brigades extinguished the blaze,” said Kursk region governor Alexander Khinshtein.

Meanwhile, Ukraine‘s special forces claimed that they had destroyed a Russian frontline fuel depot in the occupied Luhansk region.

Drones struck at the moment when the fuel tanks were filled, causing a huge explosion and fire to rip through the Russian depot.

“The Special Operations Forces continue to deliver asymmetric strikes to the enemy to accelerate the halt of its offensive efforts,” a statement to their Telegram channel said.