Ukraine affirms a strike on the Russian oil refinery in a huge drone attack

Ukraine would have struck a Russian oil refinery and targeted Moscow during an attack involving a wave of at least 121 drones, one of the largest unique operations of the genre during the war.

Video sequences checked by the BBC show a fireball that rises on the refinery and the pumping station in the Ryazan region, southeast of Moscow, which, according to Ukrainian officials, was a target.

Russia said it had killed 121 drones that had targeted 13 regions, including Ryazan and Moscow, but did not report any damage.

Elsewhere, the Ukrainian authorities said three people had been killed and one was injured when a Russian drone hit a residential building in the kyiv region.

Andriy Kovalenko, chief of the Ukrainian center for counter-information, said on Telegram that an oil refinery in Ryazan had been affected, as well as the Krenniy factory in Bryansk. Kyiv says that the installation produces components for missiles and other weapons.

Bloggers of the Telegram social media site have published images and videos of fires that rage in Ryazan. Verified images like authentic by the BBC show that people fleeing the site in cars and on foot while a ball of fire rises in the sky.

The Russian state news agency RIA cited a statement from the Krenciy factory in Bryansk, which said that work had been suspended after an attack by six drones. Pavel Malkov, the regional governor, said that emergency services responded.

The Kremlin recognized the attacks but has made no mention of damage or victims.

He said he destroyed 121 Ukrainian drones, including six in the Moscow region, 20 in the Ryazan region, and a number in the Bryansk border region.

Sergei Sobyanin, mayor of Moscow, said that the city’s air defenses had intercepted Ukrainian drone attacks in four places.

He said the air defenses south-east of the capital in Kolomna and Ramenskoye had also pushed the drones, without specifying how much. He said there was no damage.

Russian press agencies have cited Rosaviatsiyi, the Federal Aviation Agency, saying that two Moscow airports, Vnukovo and Domodedovo, had resumed flights after suspending operations for a while. Six flights were redirected to other airports.

In the city of Kursk, the mayor Igor Kutsak said that night attacks had damaged the electricity lines and cut electricity in a district.

In Ukraine, officials said its air defenses had destroyed 25 of the 58 drones launched overnight by Russia.

The Interior Ministry said that the debris of one of the drones had killed two men and a woman in Hlevakha, in the kyiv region, and that another person had been injured.