Politics
Drones Hit Moscow Refinery On Final Day Of Election That Had Already Been Decided In February
By Mor Michael, . BSN Network. Satire.
MOSCOW. The Moscow Oil Refinery caught fire early Tuesday after Ukrainian forces launched what Russian defense officials called the most extensive drone attack on Russian territory this year, a distinction that carries real weight given that the competition has been stiff.
The attack came on the third and final day of voting in Russia's State Duma elections, which had been scheduled for three days, and whose results had been scheduled for approximately four years prior to that.
Ukraine deployed an estimated 200 drones overnight, according to Russian military sources who specified that 159 were intercepted, which leaves a gap in the math that the refinery is now occupying.
The Kremlin confirmed the fire at the facility, located southeast of Moscow, and stated that emergency services were responding. It did not address whether the smoke would affect voter turnout, though turnout in Russian parliamentary elections is traditionally considered a decorative statistic.
United Russia, the ruling party, was projected to retain its commanding majority in the Duma, a body that holds legislative power in the same way that a decorative fireplace holds heat. The election had been widely described by international observers as neither free nor fair, and by Russian state media as a resounding democratic triumph, so everyone more or less agreed on the facts.
Dmitry Peskov, the Kremlin's spokesperson, told reporters Tuesday morning that the attacks were a provocation designed to disrupt Russian civil society, which is a sentence he has now delivered so many times that his press office reportedly has it on a macro key.
"This changes nothing," Peskov said at a briefing, gesturing in the general direction of a country that has not changed anything since 2000. "The Russian people are voting. The Russian people are resilient. The Russian people are," he paused here for what a pool reporter described as an unusually long moment, "voting."
At polling stations in central Moscow, voters reported that the smell was unusual but that they had filled out their ballots normally. One woman interviewed outside a station in the Zamoskvoretsky district said she had voted for United Russia because she felt it was important to participate. She did not elaborate on what she felt she was participating in.
The oil refinery, which processes a meaningful share of Moscow's fuel supply, was still burning as of midday. Energy analysts noted that disrupting Russian fuel infrastructure does not immediately affect the European energy market, a sentence that would have been false in 2021 and is now true mostly because of decisions made since then.
This is the eighth confirmed strike on Russian oil infrastructure in as many weeks, a pace that has started to feel less like a military campaign and more like a subscription service Ukraine set up and Russia cannot figure out how to cancel.
Polling closed at 8 p.m. local time. Results were expected overnight. The winner was not expected to be surprising, the runner-up was not expected to be named, and the refinery was not expected to be operational before the week was out.
All three expectations appear to be holding.
The story we are making fun of: https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-09-20/moscow-refinery-hit-as-russia-reports-largest-2026-drone-attack