Ukraine launched more than 350 drones at Moscow on Friday morning as Russia opened its three-day parliamentary elections, forcing the capital’s air defences to absorb a large-scale Geran-5 attack before many voters had even reached polling stations. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said most of the drones sent toward the city overnight were destroyed, and 64 were shot down as they approached.
Moscow and Kamchatka vote first
Polls opened in the Far East first, with Kamchatka and Chukotka becoming the first of Russia’s 11 time zones to vote. The ballot covers 450 seats in the State Duma, and voting runs until 18:00 GMT on Sunday.
Only parties that back the war have been registered to run. Yabloko was barred from the ballot in August. United Russia is certain to win the most seats, but the margin of its victory and the seats won by other parties are being closely watched because the Kremlin treats the result as a measure of support and frustration while protests stay banned and no antiwar candidates stand.
Kyiv region and the Black Sea
The same morning, Tymur Tkachenko said a Russian drone attack injured five people in the Kyiv region, including three children. That keeps the exchange moving in both directions, with civilians still paying the price even as both sides say they do not target them.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy said Ukrainian forces hit the Yaroslavl oil refinery overnight and damaged military aircraft and helicopters at a military airfield in Rostov. He also said, “There have also been good results in the Black Sea,” while the Russian Defence Ministry said its forces struck a logistics hub belonging to Nova Poshta near Odesa and a cargo vessel in Chornomorsk.
State Duma seats and public mood
Russia said the previous day that it had targeted three drone manufacturing facilities and the De Novo data centre near Kyiv. That sequence shows the campaign is now running through airspace, energy assets, logistics and political messaging at once, not through a single front.
What the Moscow drone barrage and the final seat distribution will show about public attitudes inside Russia is still the open question, because the vote ends at 18:00 GMT on Sunday and the numbers that matter most are the margins, not just the winner.
