Ukraine launched more than 1,000 drones and missiles towards Russia in an extraordinary overnight assault that Russian authorities described as including the largest drone attack yet on Moscow.
The strikes hit the Moscow region and other areas as Russia completed voting in its parliamentary election.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin described the attack on the capital as the largest of the war.
The Moscow Oil Refinery was among the facilities reportedly struck.
Deaths were also reported in the wider Moscow region.
Why target oil?
Ukraine has increasingly targeted Russia's energy infrastructure.
The logic is both military and economic.
Oil exports provide Moscow with revenue, while refineries supply fuels required by civilian consumers and the military.
Damaging refineries can therefore disrupt supplies while forcing Russia to spend resources protecting and repairing infrastructure far behind the front line.
The geography of the war is changing
One of the most important aspects of Ukraine's expanding drone programme is range.
For much of the war, Russia's major cities and industrial facilities were geographically removed from the destruction experienced across Ukraine.
Long-range drones increasingly challenge that assumption.
Ukraine can now attempt to strike infrastructure hundreds of kilometres inside Russia without relying exclusively on expensive conventional missiles.
Russia retains formidable air defences, and Russian officials say large numbers of attacking drones are intercepted.
But an attacker does not need every drone to reach its target.
A sufficiently large swarm can overwhelm or exhaust defences, while even a small percentage reaching strategic targets can cause significant disruption.
Russia promises retaliation
Moscow has vowed to intensify attacks in response to the election-period strikes.
That raises the prospect of another escalation cycle: Ukrainian attacks on Russian energy and military infrastructure followed by larger Russian strikes against Ukrainian cities and infrastructure.
The scale of Sunday's attack suggests long-range drone warfare is no longer a peripheral part of the conflict.
It is becoming one of its defining features.
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Category: International
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