Moscow was blanketed in thick black smoke on Thursday after Ukraine carried out its largest drone assault yet on the city—an attack that triggered fires, airport shutdowns and a range of heightened security measures.

Air defenses downed 992 drones, 4 cruise missiles and 10 aerial bombs, Russian state media reported. These figures have not been independently verified, but regardless of the number of interceptions, numerous targets were hit.

• Most notably, the Moscow Oil Refinery was struck, which supplies roughly 40 percent of the capital city’s gasoline and half of its diesel.
• Following strikes on the facility, an acrid haze formed across large parts of the city, with some residents posting videos of what they called “oil rain” falling from the sky.

Russian authorities launched a large-scale security operation across the city, sealing off Red Square, deploying additional armed personnel to key government locations, suspending flights, and initiating emergency response measures that halted traffic on the city’s outer ring road.

The attack underscores the expanding reach and power of Ukraine’s long-range drone campaign, which has increasingly targeted energy infrastructure deep inside Russian territory.

• Such operations have been dubbed “Ukrainian sanctions” by some observers due to their disruptions of Russian oil production and exports in ways that Western sanctions have struggled to achieve.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called Thursday’s attack a retaliation for Russia damaging a revered monastery in Kyiv and killing 10 Ukrainians earlier in the week. He reiterated that peace would be possible if Moscow engages in meaningful negotiations, and said Russian leadership had refused repeated opportunities for talks.

“We don’t want this war, we never did, and everyone knows it, and our partners ​know it,” Zelenskyy said in a message to ​reporters. “But if Ukraine burns, your Moscow will burn.”

Despite this humiliating attack on Russia’s capital and Ukraine’s growing ability to strike deep inside Russia, we should not expect Russian President Vladimir Putin to sheathe his sword.

• Trumpet editor in chief Gerald Flurry has identified Putin as a ruler who was foretold in ancient biblical prophecies. The passages depict him as a relentless aggressor driven by imperial ambition, and Mr. Flurry says Ukraine is “the linchpin of his goal of a renewed imperial Russia.”

Conquering Ukraine is not an ambition Putin is likely to abandon. To understand more, read The Prophesied ‘Prince of Russia.’