{"id":6221,"date":"2026-06-16T14:07:24","date_gmt":"2026-06-16T14:07:24","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/6221\/"},"modified":"2026-06-16T14:07:24","modified_gmt":"2026-06-16T14:07:24","slug":"large-ukraine-drone-attack-on-moscow-coercion-for-russia-to-end-war-zelenskyy-says","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/6221\/","title":{"rendered":"Large Ukraine drone attack on Moscow ‘coercion’ for Russia to end war, Zelenskyy says"},"content":{"rendered":"

Dozens of Ukrainian long-range drones attacked Moscow overnight into Tuesday morning, according to the city’s Mayor Sergey Sobyanin, with damage confirmed at a major oil refinery and flight restrictions disrupting flights at all four of the city’s international airports.<\/p>\n

“Over the past 24 hours, an attack by enemy drones on Moscow has continued. One of the drones damaged a facility on the territory of the Moscow Refinery. There were no casualties. Emergency services are working at the scene of the incident,” Sobyanin wrote in a post to Telegram. At least 60 Ukrainian drones were shot down, the mayor said.<\/p>\n

Purported videos of the Gazprom-owned refinery in Moscow showed fire and a large plume of black smoke rising over the facility, which is located in the Kapotnya District to the southeast of the city.<\/p>\n

Regional Governor Andrei Vorobyov said in a post to Telegram that 86 Ukrainian drones were intercepted over the wider Moscow region, with six people injured.<\/p>\n

\"Pavel<\/p>\n

Pavel Bednyakov\/AP Photo\/Pavel Bednyakov – PHOTO: People walk through Red Square holding umbrellas as it rains in Moscow, Russia, on June 15, 2026.<\/p>\n

Ukraine scales up drone attacks in Moscow, across Russia to record highs, data shows<\/a><\/p>\n

Ukrainian forces have been expanding their drone attacks toward Moscow in recent months, as just one element of its growing long-range strike campaign<\/a> into Russia — which officials in Kyiv refer to as “long-range sanctions.”<\/p>\n

Tuesday marked the ninth consecutive day of Ukrainian drone attacks on Moscow<\/a>, according to statements issued by Sobyanin on Telegram. The number of drones that Sobyanin reported shot down on Tuesday was also the largest of any day since May 17.<\/p>\n

Already this year, Sobyanin has reported the downing of more Ukrainian drones — 1,134 craft — than in all of 2025, when the mayor said Russian forces intercepted 734 Ukrainian drones en route to the capital.<\/p>\n

The latest Ukrainian strikes came a day after a major Russian attack on Kyiv<\/a>, which killed at least five people, damaged a historic cathedral and prompted Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha to brand Russian President Vladimir Putin a “barbarian.”<\/p>\n

Ukraine outshoots Russia in cross-border drone war for 1st time, March data suggests<\/a><\/p>\n

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy shared a purported video of the burning Moscow refinery on Telegram on Tuesday morning, attributing the damage to “Ukrainian long-range strikes.”<\/p>\n

“Russia must be compelled to end the war against our people. And Ukrainian long-range weapons are one of the important components of such coercion,” Zelenskyy wrote.<\/p>\n

“This is a just response to Russian attacks and a response to the prolongation of the war, which needs to be ended,” Zelenskyy added.<\/p>\n

Andriy Kovalenko, the head of the Counter-Disinformation Center operating as part of Ukraine’s National Security and Defense Council, said that the Moscow refinery is one of the country’s largest, with a refining capacity of around 11 million tons of oil per year. The plant, he said, accounts for some 40% of Moscow’s gasoline needs.<\/p>\n

\"Genya<\/p>\n

Genya Savilov\/AFP via Getty Images – PHOTO: Servicemen of the 9th Kairos Battalion of the “Madyar’s Birds” prepare to launch Ukrainian long-range drones from an undisclosed location in Ukraine, on May 16, 2026.<\/p>\n

Ukrainian drones hit St. Petersburg as key Putin economic forum opens<\/a><\/p>\n

“Even though Putin has deployed almost all of the key air defense and missile defense systems to Moscow, this doesn’t save the Russians. Putin is not a guarantee of safety for Muscovites,” Kovalenko wrote.<\/p>\n

Russia’s Defense Ministry said the attack on Moscow was one element of a larger wave of overnight strikes. The ministry claimed that Russian forces downed at least 172 Ukrainian drones overnight into Tuesday morning.<\/p>\n

Russia’s federal air transport agency, Rosaviatsiya, announced flight restrictions at more than a dozen airports across southern and western Russia, including at all four of Moscow’s international airports — Domodedovo, Vnukovo, Zhukovsky and Sheremetyevo.<\/p>\n

Elsewhere, flight restrictions affected airports stretching from Sochi on the Black Sea coast to Nizhnekamsk in the Tatarstan Republic, some 750 miles from Ukraine.<\/p>\n

Ukraine’s air force said Russia continued its own long-range attacks overnight. The air force said in a post to Telegram that Russia launched 132 drones and two missiles into the country in its latest barrage, of which 114 drones were intercepted or suppressed.<\/p>\n

\"Thibault<\/p>\n

Thibault Camus\/Pool AP via AP – PHOTO: From left, U.S. President Donald Trump, French President Emmanuel Macron and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during a working session at the G7 summit in Evian-les-Bains, France, Tuesday, June 16, 2026.<\/p>\n

Trump arrives in France for 1st G7 summit since US-Iran war began<\/a><\/p>\n

Both missiles and 16 drones impacted across nine locations, the air force said.<\/p>\n

The latest exchanges came as Zelenskyy sat down with Western leaders — among them President Donald Trump — at the G7 summit in Evian-les-Bains, France, on Tuesday.<\/p>\n

On Monday, the Ukrainian leader said he would use his visit to the G7 gathering to again appeal for Kyiv’s Western partners to put more pressure on Putin to end the Russian invasion.<\/p>\n

ABC News’ Emily Chang contributed to this report.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Dozens of Ukrainian long-range drones attacked Moscow overnight into Tuesday morning, according to the city’s Mayor Sergey Sobyanin,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":6222,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[531,3305,38,3304,3278,1241,3306,1964,1967,26,506,33,152],"class_list":["post-6221","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-news","tag-drone-attacks","tag-international-airports","tag-moscow","tag-moscow-refinery","tag-moscow-region","tag-oil-refinery","tag-security-service-of-ukraine","tag-sergey-sobyanin","tag-telegram","tag-ukraine","tag-ukrainian-president","tag-vladimir-putin","tag-volodymyr-zelenskyy"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6221","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6221"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6221\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6222"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6221"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6221"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ukraine\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6221"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}