Ukraine says it used a newly developed ballistic missile in the attacks, which also targeted other parts of Russia.
By Valerie Hopkins and Andrew E. Kramer
September 21, 2026
The New York Times
Moscow and its surrounding region came under attack by hundreds of drones, the local authorities said on Sunday morning, on the final day of parliamentary, regional and local elections across Russia. About 1,600 drones heading toward the Moscow region were shot down, the Russian capital’s mayor, Sergei Sobyanin, said, including 450 that had been approaching the city. He called the attack the largest drone strike on Moscow of the war.
Two people were killed and 20 injured in the strike, Russian authorities said. An oil refinery and a warehouse were also hit.
President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine posted on Facebook that the bombardment included the first use of a newly developed Ukrainian ballistic missile to strike inside Russia. That missile does not have the range to reach Moscow, according to its manufacturer, Fire Point, so it would have been aimed elsewhere in Russia. Neither Mr. Sobyanin’s comment about the scale of the attack nor Mr. Zelensky’s statement about the use of a ballistic missile could be independently confirmed.
Mr. Zelensky, in a separate statement on social media on Sunday, said that he had spoken to President Trump and that they had agreed to meet in New York. The United Nations General Assembly is taking place this week. The White House did not immediately respond to a request for comment. “This meeting could change a lot,” Mr. Zelensky wrote. “There is diplomatic momentum.”
Russian officials have repeatedly said that they are holding elections under attack, possibly an implicit criticism of Ukraine, which has not held elections since the start of Russia’s full-scale invasion in 2022 because martial law forbids them. President Vladimir V. Putin has repeatedly criticized Kyiv and Mr. Zelensky for not holding a vote. The night was deadlier in Ukraine, where seven people were killed in strikes in the Kyiv and Sumy regions, according to Ukrainian authorities. Air alerts were on and off all night though most of the country.
Moscow’s mayor said “a few drones” had struck the Moscow oil refinery in Kapotnya, which had been taken out of commission by attacks in June. At the time, it was estimated that the repairs would last for six months. On Sunday, Mr. Sobyanin said the refinery had again been damaged. In the neighborhood of Ramenskoye, a 21-story building caught fire and 600 residents were evacuated, said Moscow’s regional governor, Andrei Vorobyov.
A warehouse in the Moscow region was also struck, though no casualties were reported. For months, Ukraine has been targeting warehouses in Russia with long-range strikes. All four airports in the Moscow region introduced temporary restrictions at the time of the attacks, and more than 30 flights were grounded, according to the newspaper Kommersant.
On Saturday, Mr. Sobyanin reported that a total of 2,022 drones had flown toward the Moscow region over the preceding seven days, 186 of which were shot down as they approached Moscow. Most of the drones had been shot down while they were still far from the city.
President Trump said last Monday that Kyiv and Moscow had agreed to stop campaigns of pounding one another’s energy infrastructure but neither side has confirmed that an agreement had been reached. The attacks have continued through the week.
The outcome of the Russian elections was expected to be a foregone conclusion: victory for the ruling party that supports Mr. Putin, because the Kremlin has engineered the vote to minimize competition. According to preliminary results published late Sunday by the Central Election Commission, the ruling United Russia party won more than half the votes, with the four other parties that had won seats in the previous elections once again entering Parliament.
Russians dread what may come after the Kremlin receives what most expect will be its desired result at the ballot box — whether that be another, albeit quieter, round of mobilization, more tax increases or more internet restrictions.
The country is already facing widespread fuel shortages because of Ukraine’s attacks on refineries. While fuel lines have become commonplace in the last few months, there were few on Saturday because not many fuel stations had any gas to sell. When they did, it was low-quality gas or diesel.
In his statement on Facebook, Mr. Zelensky said the Ukrainians had struck with several types of domestically made drones and missiles created during the war in response to Russian missile attacks on Ukraine. These included Fury, FP-1 and Flamingo exploding drones, the Palianytsia cruise missile and the FP-7 Pelican ballistic missile, Mr. Zelensky said in the statement.
The Pelican missile is already in production in Ukraine, along with a larger, longer-range version expected to enter combat tests later this fall. The longer-range version, the FP-9, could reach Moscow.
Ephrat Livni contributed reporting.
Valerie Hopkins is an international correspondent for The New York Times, covering the war in Ukraine and how the conflict is changing Russia, Ukraine, Europe and the United States. I am based in Moscow. Her work focuses on the wide-ranging consequences of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in both countries. I was in Kyiv when the first missiles struck the Ukrainian capital on Feb. 24, 2022, and have continued to report on the war from both Ukraine and Russia. In Russia, I have traveled widely — from the Arctic to Siberia to the Caucasus region — to document how businesses, cultural institutions, dissidents and ordinary people have responded to the economic and human fallout of the war and the extensive repression that has accompanied it. With many independent Russian and foreign journalists leaving Russia in the wake of the full-scale invasion of Ukraine, I believe it is increasingly vital to be on the ground to understand how ordinary people experience the war and the tectonic geopolitical shifts it has engendered.
Andrew E. Kramer is the New York Times bureau chief in Kyiv. Previously, Mr. Kramer worked as a reporter covering the countries of the former Soviet Union from a base in Moscow, where he divided his time between the business and international desks. He has covered a range of topics, including climate change in the Arctic, the oil industry and economic reforms in post-Soviet states. From 2007 until 2011, he reported in Iraq on occasional assignments. Before joining The Times, Mr. Kramer worked at The Associated Press in Portland, Ore., and in New York; he worked for The Washington Post as a researcher and news aide; as a freelance reporter for The San Francisco Chronicle; and as a part-time reporter for The Ukiah Daily Journal, in Ukiah, Calif. In 2017, Mr. Kramer shared with Times colleagues a Pulitzer Prize for international reporting for an investigative series on Russia’s covert projection of power. Mr. Kramer received a bachelor’s in history from the University of California at Santa Cruz and a master’s in history from Oxford University. He was born in Oakland, Calif.
