Shocked Russians watched worst attack on Moscow since the start of war (Ukraine Battlefield update, Day 1,575)

Ukrainian drones flying through the Moscow morning sky . Air defence that tried and failed to stop them. A burning refinery hit at least five times. Smoke from the fire covered the morning sky. And frightened residents, incredulously watching what was happening in the Russian capital four and a half years after the start of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Moscow experienced on Thursday morning the largest Ukrainian attack since the start of the war. Russian official sources said they shot down almost 200 drones directly over the city and its surroundings. In total, they neutralised 555 drones over Russian territory, it was quite likely that a large share of those shot down in other regions had also been heading for Moscow.

They were not able to shoot them all down, however. And the wealth of visual material that Muscovites published despite the ban (one blogger was summoned to a police station for doing so) showed that this was truly something unprecedented.

The main target was the Moscow refinery, located about 15 km south-east of the Kremlin. The Ukrainians had already attacked it on Tuesday, but at that time they managed to hit it with only one drone, although they reportedly struck a key part of the oil-processing operation.

This time, however, the footage showed a greater inferno. According to the independent Russian outlet Astra, the refinery was burning in at least five places because of the drones. Polish analyst Jarosław Wolski wrote that drones hit it at least eight times, and perhaps more than ten times.

Even Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin admitted that “several drones reached the refinery”.

This was also confirmed by videos that people filmed and published. They include shots of drones at the very moment they hit the refinery.

This footage shows the „birdcage“ nets Russians have placed around their refineries as protection, but due to weight of the drones, their warheads and, therefore, explosive yield their value is virtually zero. pic.twitter.com/FixIH9zmCK

The timing of the attack on the Moscow Oil Refinery is remarkable. Multiple strike drones hit the same target almost simultaneously, with just seconds separating the impacts. https://t.co/hZ6bKlNVXu pic.twitter.com/rcImB59ky5

Absolute devastation inside the Kapotnya refinery in Moscow, Russia. The fires fully engulfed large parts of the Russian refinery, but also objects surrounding this military target have been compromised, whether by Russian air defense action or shrapnel of the exploding refinery. pic.twitter.com/cFLjUBffy4

People also filmed one remarkable incident, when an explosion in an oil storage tank hurled the lid covering it several dozen metres into the air.

Footage of a Ukrainian attack drone hitting a storage tank at the Moscow Oil Refinery this morning, sending the tank lid perfectly soaring hundreds of feet. pic.twitter.com/2GIHEGk52M

Another angle of the explosion of the silo. In Moscow, Russia. You can see at the end of the footage something crashing on the road. Unclear whether this is shrapnel from the exploding refinery or an Russian air defense missile missing another target. I believe the latter. pic.twitter.com/p08yh90X4J

According to one account, this storage tank was in fact hit by a Russian air-defence missile.

HAHAHAHAHA I think almost everyone has seen the moment when, during the attack on Moscow, the lid of one of the oil tanks was literally blown off. SO, IT WAS BLOWN OFF AFTER THE IMPACT OF A RUSSIAN AIR DEFENSE MISSILE NOT UKRAINIAN DRONE🤣🤣🤣 pic.twitter.com/p0ZfDIS3jK

Since the refinery was burning in several places, the fire was much more intense than on Tuesday and the black smoke was probably visible from a large part of Moscow.

“This is a fully justified response to Russian attacks on our cities and villages,” Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky commented . The commander of Ukraine’s unmanned-systems forces, Robert Brovdy, alias Magyar, reminded people that Moscow burned down in 1812 during Napoleon’s invasion.

The exact damage to the refinery is not known. However, the Ukrainian OSINT account Kyber Borošno wrote that hits had been recorded on storage tanks, catalytic cracking units, the visbreaking unit area, and the combined unit for producing methyl tert-butyl ether and oligomerate.

Russians invested heavily in the air defence of their capital. According to independent OSINT analysts, they have dozens of Pantsir systems in and around the city. Even so, they failed to completely stop Thursday’s attack.

Russian war reporter Alexander Kots saw it differently. According to him , the 180 drones shot down over the city was something that would have been unthinkable even a month ago. “The air-defence gunners and electronic-warfare crews working in the direction of the capital were operating at the maximum possible intensity,” he said. According to him, drones heading for Moscow included Lutyj, FP-1, Bobr and the Bars rocket drone.

Videos emerged that showed successful air-defence interceptions, but also ones where Russian gunners were not such masters of their craft as the Russian reporter suggested.

Moscow residents laugh hysterically as Ukrainian drones dismantle the core of the Russian economy. pic.twitter.com/BmnXLhobfz

Über Moskau hat ein russisches Panzir-S1-System versucht, eine ukrainische FP-1-Drohne mit einer Flugabwehrrakete abzuschießen. Vergeblich. pic.twitter.com/o3k1zDVrJU

As in Kyiv, shooting down drones in Moscow is also risky, since debris from a hit drone can also cause damage. This is visible in this video, where a downed drone fell onto a roof and caused a fire.

People always mock the ‘falling debris’ claims when countries claim successful interceptions. However it’s why I think proximity fuzes are key. You have to completely blow up the targets in the air pic.twitter.com/1iQBWhsyWb

In addition, at least two videos appeared showing Ukrainian drones directly hitting residential buildings in Russia. In this case, they hit apartments on the 24th and 25th floors.

It is not clear why these drones hit the apartment blocks; they may have been diverted from their targets by electronic-warfare means.

Moskva ... ukrajinskému dronu se do cesty postavil panelák. pic.twitter.com/M6whSkR6DA

Moscow really needs to do something about all these cranes. They're seriously interfering with Ukrainian drone traffic😡 pic.twitter.com/FffGLVLycO

In any case, Moscow’s residents were shocked by what they saw. The war had largely bypassed Moscow until now. Although similar Ukrainian attacks had been recorded in other Russian cities, they had not yet occurred with such intensity in the capital.

Overall, Russian authorities reported at least 17 people injured. It should be recalled, however, that in the war started by Russia, the residents of Kyiv face attacks of far greater intensity and with far more casualties, and much more often.

Russians in panic, an air-defence missile landed next to a shopping mall

Another instance where the Russian air defense missile not only misses the Ukrainian drone, but also impacts inside a civilian neighborhood. pic.twitter.com/QmvddBIUPT

We were playing and then we saw it, one Muscovite commented.

Guess we f*cked around and found out, an insightful Moscow resident says as he watches the Moscow oil refinery burning. https://t.co/ibupq8ofJc pic.twitter.com/k9918G4MhE

Moscow is large, however, and one should not think that people everywhere were panicking. As wrote Jiří Just, a Czech journalist living in Moscow, on X, this was “a breaking news story and Muscovites are reading about it.”

“At the moment, Russians are probably angry, it is without doubt the hottest story of the day. We will see, however, how this is reflected in opinion polls and, even better, in the parliamentary elections in September,” he added.

Russians will import petrol. The Moscow refinery normally processes 10 million tonnes of crude oil a year, and petrol from it accounts for roughly half of the capital’s petrol and diesel consumption. After the first attack on Tuesday, it was briefly out of operation, according to Reuters.

The attack comes at a time when there are already fuel shortages not only in Crimea. Some petrol-station chains in Moscow and Saint Petersburg have also introduced refuelling limits.

On Wednesday, a report came out that Russia, an oil powerhouse and until recently one of the largest exporters of crude and oil products, would import petrol by sea. According to a Reuters source , this is to happen in June, when tankers from Asia arrive at western ports. The volume of imported petrol is not known.