Sawt Falasteen - Ukraine sets Moscow refinery ablaze in biggest attack in years

AFP reporters saw large columns of black smoke spreading over the capital's southern skyline in dramatic scenes, while flames could be seen burning on part of an oil complex in the southern Kapotnya district.

A strong, unpleasant smell hung in the air, as the fire burned at the refinery through the morning.

The strikes came as Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted Southeast Asian leaders at a summit in the central city of Kazan, about 700 kilometres (435 miles) east of the capital.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky praised the strikes in a post on social media, calling them a "fully justified response" to Russian attacks on Ukraine.

The attack was the largest on Moscow in at least two years, Russia's state TASS news agency reported.

And the second time this month that Kyiv has launched a major attack during an international summit after striking Saint Petersburg at the start of a landmark economic forum near the city.

All of Moscow's airports were shut for hours, leading to hundreds of flight delays.

The country's busiest -- Sheremetyevo -- announced it had evacuated passengers to "safe locations" during the barrage, before it re-opened at around 11:00 am (0800 GMT).

"Several drones managed to reach the MNPZ (Moscow Oil Refinery)," Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin wrote on Telegram early Thursday, without specifying damage to the facility.

Authorities announced they had closed traffic on streets nearby.

Another drone crashed into an apartment building in the Moscow region district of Zhukovsky, while drone debris sparked a fire at a shopping centre near the capital's suburbs, Moscow region governor Andrey Vorobyov said.

One social media video showed smoke pouring from the upper floors of an apartment block, while a woman behind the camera could be heard weeping in distress.

- 'Long-range sanctions' -

Russian air defences shot down around 180 drones on approach to Moscow, Sobyanin said, while the defence ministry reported it had intercepted more than 500 Ukrainian drones across the entire country overnight.

A separate Ukrainian drone strike on Russia's southern Rostov region left one person dead and at least two injured, the region's governor said.

Kyiv has stepped up its drone strikes on Russia in recent months, hitting oil refineries that fund Moscow's war chest, as diplomatic talks on ending the more than four-year conflict remain stalled.

It was the second Ukrainian strike on the Moscow refinery this week.

Zelensky calls the attacks Kyiv's "long-range sanctions".

"It is time the war ended, and Russia must take the necessary steps in diplomacy," he said.

Russia also launched more than 200 drones and multiple ballistic missiles at Ukraine between late Wednesday and early Thursday, according to the Ukrainian air force.

AFP reporters in Kyiv said people rushing to shelters in the early hours after air-defence blasts rocked over the Ukrainian capital.

- Putin in Kazan -

In the hours following the attack, Putin posed for a photo with leaders at a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) in Kazan and made no mention of the strike in his opening remarks to the forum.

Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia and Singapore sent their prime ministers to Kazan, while the Philippines sent President Ferdinand Marcos.

Putin has long sought to project stability in Russia, despite the economic and social effects of his four-year offensive on Ukraine.

But a recent spate of attacks has forced the Kremlin to respond.

After Kyiv launched similar attacks on Saint Petersburg during Putin's flagship economic conference earlier this month, the Russian leader promised to bolster air defences.

And Russia's federal aviation regulator introduced a ban on civilian drones and light aircraft around Moscow's airspace earlier this week, amid the strikes.

Russian authorities restrict the publishing of pictures and videos from sites hit by Ukrainian drones, and state media was yet to publish any imagery from the scene of the attack -- the thick smoke visible from the city centre.

At a summit of the G7 in France earlier this week, US President Donald Trump said Moscow should "make a deal" to end the Ukraine war as Russia's advances have slowed.

Putin has repeatedly refused offers for face-to-face talks with Zelensky, saying that Moscow intends to capture Ukraine's eastern Donbas region by force.

Russia's 2022 offensive on Ukraine has become Europe's deadliest conflict since World War II, with hundreds of thousands killed and large parts of eastern and southern Ukraine ravaged by fighting.

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V.Said--SF-PST