(The Turkish Post) – Russia’s aviation authority closed all four Moscow airports for several hours overnight into Oct. 16 as Ukrainian drones flew toward the capital, while Russian drones struck Ukraine’s western Volyn region on the border with Poland and left about 370,000 people without power.
The overnight exchange came a day after Kyiv ended a brief pause on strikes against Russian energy sites, and hours after U.S. President Donald Trump called Ukraine’s renewed attacks on Russian oil refineries “a disgrace.”
Flights halted at Moscow airports
The Federal Air Transport Agency (Rosaviatsia) restricted arrivals and departures at Sheremetyevo, Vnukovo, Domodedovo and Zhukovsky from the evening of Oct. 15 until the early hours of Oct. 16. Operations at each of the Moscow airports were suspended for up to seven hours.
About 160 flights were delayed or canceled at the four airports, most of them at Sheremetyevo and Vnukovo.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said air defenses shot down 94 drones that were heading for the capital during the night. The figure could not be independently verified.
Pulkovo airport in St. Petersburg also halted flights during the night, with restrictions in place until the morning. Leningrad region Governor Alexander Drozdenko said four drones were destroyed over the region.
The closures were the latest in a series of overnight shutdowns of the Moscow airports in October, as Ukraine has stepped up long-range drone attacks on targets deep inside Russia.
Russian drones strike Volyn on the Polish border
Volyn Governor Roman Romaniuk said Russian drones attacked the region overnight and hit a private enterprise with foreign investment in Manevychi, killing one person and injuring eight. He said 370,000 people were left without electricity at daybreak.
Debris from a downed drone damaged power lines in the regional capital Lutsk, disrupting electricity and water supplies in the city. Parts of the city of Kovel were also without power, according to local authorities.
Volyn borders both Poland and Belarus. Poland’s armed forces said they scrambled fighter jets during the night to protect Polish airspace and later reported that no violation of the airspace had been recorded.
Russia’s overnight attacks also reached Kyiv, where emergency power cuts were introduced, and the central city of Uman, where drones hit an apartment building and injured several people, according to police. Ukrainian officials said hundreds of thousands of people across the country were left without electricity.
Trump calls refinery strikes a disgrace
Trump criticized Ukraine’s decision to resume strikes on Russian refineries in a television interview broadcast late on Oct. 15. “I think that’s a disgrace,” he said.
“I find Zelensky to be more difficult to deal with than Putin,” Trump said, adding that he believed both leaders would like the war to end. He has argued that the Ukrainian strikes push up world oil prices.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an interview published on Oct. 15 that Kyiv was ending its pause on refinery attacks because Russia kept striking Ukraine’s power grid. Ukrainian drones set the Ryazan refinery ablaze the same day.
Trump announced on Oct. 11 that Russia and Ukraine had agreed to stop attacking each other’s energy infrastructure. Russian strikes hit power plants in Kyiv and Kharkiv within hours of the announcement, and Kyiv says Moscow never observed the truce.
Zelensky seeks support in Brussels
Zelensky spent Oct. 16 in Brussels at the summit of European Union leaders, where he described the bloc’s heads of government as “real leaders.” EU leaders pledged continued support for Ukraine and urged Washington to put more pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin.
Zelensky also complained of gaps in Western intelligence sharing and of restrictions on Ukraine’s use of Starshield, the military version of SpaceX’s Starlink satellite service. SpaceX owner Elon Musk has said that limits on Starshield are decided by the U.S. government.
Trump lifted U.S. sanctions on Russian diesel earlier in October under an arrangement with Putin. U.S. fuel prices are a central issue before the midterm elections on Nov. 3, and Trump has said the Ukrainian refinery strikes are driving prices higher.
The EU summit was due to close in Brussels on the evening of Oct. 16.
