Black smoke rose over the area of the Moscow oil refinery owned by Russia’s Gazprom Neft in the southeastern part of the capital on June 18, 2026. An AFP / Scanpix / LETA photograph captured the aftermath.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said at least 194 drones were shot down on their approach to the city. Some of the drones, however, reached targets in Moscow and the surrounding region.
Refinery fire and damage to residential buildings
Sobyanin said several drones reached the Moscow refinery in the Kapotnya district, where a fire then broke out. Astra said it identified at least five separate fire sites in videos from the scene, while Dnipro Osint reported seven.
According to Astra, a residential apartment building in Moscow at 16 Novye Kotelniki microdistrict was hit. The outlet said the strike affected the upper floors of the building.
Andrei Vorobyov, governor of the Moscow region, said a Ukrainian drone hit a multi-story residential building on Gagarin Street in Zhukovsky outside Moscow. Two balcony slabs and the exit to a fire escape were damaged. According to preliminary information, no one was injured and residents were evacuated.
Shopping centers and other consequences
Drone debris fell onto Moscow’s Sadovod shopping center. Sobyanin said no one was injured. A fire also broke out on the roof of the Belaya Dacha shopping center. Vorobyov said information about possible injuries was being clarified.
In Elektrostal, the governor said a private house was damaged and a woman suffered a minor shoulder injury. A car also caught fire in the city. In Lyubertsy, a fitness center building and, in Vorobyov’s words, an “object in the industrial zone” were damaged; preliminarily, no one was hurt. In Chekhov and Pavlovsky Posad, he said drones struck summer houses and land plots.
The Telegram channel Ostorozhno, Moskva estimated that about 150 flights were delayed because of restrictions at Moscow airports. According to those figures, around 62 arriving flights were delayed at Sheremetyevo, 63 at Vnukovo, and 48 at Domodedovo.
Ukraine’s response
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the war must be brought to an end and that Russia needed to “take the necessary steps in diplomacy” for that to happen.
“This is a completely fair response to Russian strikes on our cities and communities, and another important result of our military’s work against facilities that support Russia’s war machine,” Zelenskyy said.