Moscow oil refinery struck in Ukraine’s biggest air raid on city since start of war

0:56 Ukrainian drones hit oil refinery and residential building in Moscow – video Moscow oil refinery struck in Ukraine’s biggest air raid on city since start of war Kyiv says attack, which also forced evacuation at Russia’s biggest airport, was in response to strike on historic monastery Europe live – latest updates Ukrainian drones have hit several locations across Moscow in Kyiv’s biggest air raid on the city since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion, setting a major ⁠oil refinery on fire and forcing evacuations at the country’s largest airport. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, described the attack as a response to Russia’s striking of a historic Kyiv monastery complex earlier this week. “We do not want this war and never did,” Zelenskyy said in a voice message to journalists. “But if Ukraine is going to burn, your Moscow will burn too … It is time to end the aggression, time to end this war.” The scale of the long-range attack, apparently designed to shut down operations at the key oil refinery in the Kapotno area, caught most people by surprise in a city that does not typically warn residents with air raid alarms, and prompted panicked messages on social media. Locator Footage posted online showed three plumes of smoke rising from the Kapotno refinery. The strike was the second in two days on the facility. The refinery, one of Moscow’s most important energy facilities, supplies up to 40% of the capital’s petrol and about 50% of its diesel fuel. Russia said its ⁠air defence systems ​intercepted and ⁠destroyed 555 Ukrainian drones over ⁠multiple ​regions ‌overnight. The number actually shot down could not be independently confirmed. Vladimir Putin is in Kazan, 430 miles (700km) east of Moscow, hosting leaders of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations as Russia seeks to bolster business and other ties. Kyiv was hit this week by a major strike of ballistic missiles and drones in a marked escalation of the air war. Putin had warned of impending “systemic strikes” on Ukraine. The Moscow attack came hours after Zelenskyy said he had held “an important coordination call” with the presidents of the US and France and had won vital pledges of further support from this week’s international G7 summit. Zelenskyy was expected to hold talks in Brussels on Thursday with Nato and EU leaders, including about the possibility of a system to defend against ballistic missiles. Russia has repeatedly struck Ukraine with those types of missiles, which air defences struggle to counter. The British defence secretary, Dan Jarvis, announced on Thursday at a meeting of western allies in Brussels that the UK would pay £750m to supply Kyiv with a further 150,000 Ukrainian-made drones and more than 350 air defence missiles. The funding comes from a £2.26bn loan taken out against the interest generated by Russian central bank assets frozen since the start of the full-scale invasion in 2022. View image in fullscreen Building on fire following Ukrainian d