Moscow votes under smoke

Moscow on 20 September 2026 is a city voting under smoke. On the third and last day of Russia’s first parliamentary election since the full-scale war in Ukraine began, the capital is asked to treat the ballot as a show of unity. Overnight, that same city is also a target.

President Vladimir Putin has framed the State Duma vote as proof that “millions of people stand behind our soldiers.” United Russia is expected to keep control of the chamber. Most anti-war candidates never reached the ballot. Yabloko, the small liberal party that hoped to harvest war fatigue, says its remaining candidates fear prosecution after senior figures were jailed for comments about the war. Kyiv calls the whole process a “pseudo election.” The Kremlin calls it a test of national will.

Sunday morning arrived with a different test. Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said Russia had shot down more than 1,600 drones since Saturday, 450 of them headed for the capital. He called it an “unprecedented attack,” planned, in his words, “with the aim of disrupting the elections.” “The adversary failed to achieve this,” he added. Ukraine has not commented. Both sides say they do not target civilians.

Several drones still got through. One struck an apartment in the city, Sobyanin said, without reported deaths there. Others reached the Moscow Oil Refinery. Reuters witnesses heard explosions and saw plumes of smoke rising from the plant. The facility has been hit before. In 2024 it processed 11.6 million tonnes of crude and produced 2.9 million tonnes of gasoline and 3.2 million tonnes of diesel. Ukrainian strikes on Russian refining capacity have already produced shortages, higher fuel prices and queues across the country. The scale of Sunday’s damage was not immediately clear.

President Zelenskyy said Ukrainian long-range strikes hit a key Russian oil facility and logistics site in the Moscow region overnight, using multiple domestic systems to disrupt funding for Russia’s war machine.

Our long-range responses had a very significant impact in the Moscow region last night. One of Russia’s key oil industry facilities and the aggressor’s logistics facility were hit. These are billions of dollars that sustain the war machine. The systems used included FP-1, RZ-100,… pic.twitter.com/ka5mlDSgb7
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) September 20, 2026

Outside the city limits the attack was deadlier. Moscow region governor Andrei Vorobyov said two people were killed — a 44-year-old woman and an elderly man — in separate locations. About 400 residents, including 70 children, were evacuated from a 21-storey block in Ramenskoye after a fire. Homes were damaged. BBC reporting also cited six injured and temporary restrictions at Sheremetyevo and Vnukovo airports, later lifted, with delays lingering into the morning.

This is the texture of Moscow on election day: polling stations still open, official posters still up, and a skyline that can suddenly carry black smoke. Online voting in the capital was already reported under cyberattack on Saturday. Putin had accused Ukraine of trying to interfere in the vote after an official was killed in Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia; Reuters could not independently verify that strike. The war itself is in its fifth year. U.S. President Donald Trump said earlier in the week that the two sides had agreed to stop hitting each other’s energy infrastructure. The agreement, if it existed, did not hold overnight.

Inside the permitted political system, the result is expected to look settled. The NEST think tank in Berlin has argued that economic strain and war fatigue could still shift some votes toward the Communists and New People — parties allowed on the ballot, and parties that have generally voted with United Russia on the war’s core questions. Initial results were due around 1800 GMT Sunday. The Kremlin will likely present whatever number emerges as endorsement. Critics will call it managed. The smoke over the refinery is harder to manage.

That is Moscow this weekend: a capital staging a vote about a war that has now reached its own fuel plant, its own apartment blocks, and the last morning of the count.

Caption: Screenshot from video posted on X by Volodymyr Zelenskyy