By Jekaterina Golubkova and Ronald Popeski
June 18 (Reuters) – Ukrainian drones hit Moscow’s oil refinery for the second time this week while Russia fired missiles into Kyiv, as President Volodymyr Zelenskiy sought support from the U.S. and Europe to reach a peace deal.
Moscow downed over five dozen drones on Thursday, Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Telegram, and a Reuters witness saw flames and plumes of smoke over the southeastern district of Kapotnya where the Moscow refinery is located.
“Air defense forces continue to repel a massive attack. Several drones managed to reach the Moscow oil refinery,” Sobyanin said, adding that a shopping centre also suffered minor damage.
The attack is the second in just a few days after a drone strike on Tuesday halted operations at the refinery, sources said, adding to widespread damage to Russian energy facilities and extending a fuel crisis deeper into the country.
Russia, the world’s third-biggest oil producer and a major oil and fuel exporter, is set to import fuel by sea this month as it seeks to manage a gasoline shortage following extensive Ukrainian drone attacks on its refineries, according to industry sources.
In the surrounding Moscow region, a high-rise residential building, an industrial facility and a number of private houses were also damaged in the drone attack, the regional governor said.
The Sheremetyevo airport, Moscow’s busiest, suspended flights and evacuated people, some seeking shelter in the parking area, the airport said in a statement. The restrictions were later lifted.
BALLISTIC MISSILES TARGET KYIV
Kyiv came under the second air attack this week as Russia unleashed ballistic missiles on the Ukrainian capital, city officials said.
“The enemy is attacking the capital with ballistic missiles. Stay in safe places until the air raid alert is over!” Tymur Tkachenko, the head of Kyiv’s military administration, said in a Telegram post early on Thursday, without details.
A Reuters witness heard explosions in Kyiv, and authorities in the northeastern Ukrainian city of Sumy said one person was killed in a drone attack. Air strike alerts were issued for most of Ukraine’s territory.
Earlier this week, a major attack on Kyiv by Russia killed 10 people and damaged a 1,000-year-old monastery that symbolises Ukraine’s spiritual and cultural heritage, drawing condemnation from European leaders. Russia denied striking the monastery.
ZELENSKIY SPEAKS TO TRUMP
The fresh attacks came as Zelenskiy tried to increase pressure on Russia to negotiate an end to its four-year-long war.
Zelenskiy said he had spoken to U.S. President Donald Trump and French President Emmanuel Macron, plus other leaders, on the sidelines of a Group of Seven meeting in France. He described it as a “coordinating conversation” to try to end the war.
Trump said on Wednesday that Russia was losing more soldiers than Ukraine, after he suggested that both Russian President Vladimir Putin and Zelenskiy seemed open to doing something about the war.
Putin had not discussed the possibility of a meeting with Zelenskiy during his latest phone call with Trump, the Kremlin said this week. Russia has said Ukraine was losing.
In other drone and missile strikes, one person was killed in the Ukrainian city of Enerhodar, where most of the staff of the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant live, Russia-appointed Mayor Maksim Pukhov said on Telegram.
In Russia’s Belgorod border region, officials said a Ukrainian drone strike killed one man in his car. On Wednesday, Moscow had accused Ukraine of attacking a bus carrying Belarusian children, an accusation Kyiv said was “false”.
In the southern Russian region of Rostov, a Ukrainian drone attack killed one person and caused a fire at two commercial facilities, officials said.
Russia and Ukraine deny deliberately targeting civilians in the war that started with Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
(Reporting by Jekaterīna Golubkova and Ron Popeski; Editing by Nia Williams, Neil Fullick and Stephen Coates)
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