Ukraine has launched a barrage of drones on Moscow and other regions as Russia opened polls for its first parliamentary elections since the start of the war. More than 350 Ukrainian drones targeted the Russian capital on Friday morning, Moscow’s mayor reported. With the vote potentially offering the Kremlin a measure of the public mood over the invasion, Kyiv has maintained its bid to use air attacks to have Russians feel the impact of the conflict politically, socially and economically.
Polls opened on Friday in the Far East, where Kamchatka and Chukotka on the Pacific became the first of Russia’s 11 time zones to vote in the three-day ballot for the 450 seats of the State Duma, the lower house of parliament. Only political parties that back the war have been registered to run. Yabloko, the sole party opposing the conflict, was barred from the ballot in August.
Voting runs until on Sunday. Moscow has also organised balloting in occupied parts of Ukraine. President Vladimir Putin’s United Russia party, which has dominated Russian politics since 2000, is certain to win the most seats.
However, the margin of its victory, and seats won by other parties, is being closely watched. With protests banned and no antiwar candidates standing, the vote offers the Kremlin a measure of the depth of public support and frustration with a conflict that has killed hundreds of thousands of people since February 2022. Ukraine has found significant success in bringing the impact of the conflict home to Russians, with almost nightly drone attacks hitting energy and economic infrastructure, causing billions of rubles in damage.
Kyiv maintains, like Moscow, that it does not target civilians, but many civilian deaths have also been reported deep inside the country. On Friday, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin wrote on social media that most of the 350 drones sent towards the capital overnight had been destroyed at an outer defensive perimeter, with 64 shot down as they approached the city. As well as the barrage targeting Moscow, Ukrainian forces hit the Yaroslavl oil refinery overnight, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy reported, adding that a strike on a military airfield in Rostov had damaged military aircraft and helicopters.
Russian forces also continue to use air strikes to destroy Ukraine’s economic and military infrastructure and disrupt support for Kyiv’s continued defence. The Russian Defence Ministry said on Friday that its forces had struck a logistics hub belonging to Ukrainian postal company Nova Poshta near the Black Sea port city of Odesa, as well as a cargo vessel in the nearby port of Chornomorsk. It said both strikes had been for military purposes.
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