Moscow is choking on its own fuel. Residents living near the Kapotnya oil refinery reported a foul, black precipitation on Tuesday morning, hours after what officials confirm was the largest Ukrainian drone assault on Russian soil since the war began. Sources close to the emergency services describe a scene of industrial catastrophe: storage tanks ruptured, a plume of toxic smoke rising over the capital, and a slick of crude seeping into the Moscow River.
Eyewitnesses tell me the rain tasted of diesel. Car windshields were smeared with a greasy film. Children were kept indoors. The refinery, owned by Gazprom Neft, is a critical node in Russia's fuel supply chain. Its destruction - or even a prolonged shutdown - could send petrol prices spiralling and military logistics into disarray. That is precisely the point.
The Kremlin is silent. State media initially reported a minor fire, quickly extinguished. Then came the drone footage. Dozens of UAVs, some as large as small planes, swarming the facility. Air defence systems overwhelmed. At least three confirmed hits on distillation columns. A fourth on a fuel storage farm.
Let me be clear: this is not a symbolic strike. This is an industrial-scale operation designed to shut down Moscow's fuel hub. The black rain is collateral damage, a visible marker of a system under siege. Residents in the surrounding district of Lyublino described a thunderous roar around 3am, followed by a series of explosions that lit up the sky like a grotesque dawn.
Independent air quality monitors recorded particulate matter off the charts. The city's environmental agency has advised residents to keep windows closed and wear masks outdoors, but such announcements are routine now. What is not routine is the admission from a source inside the refinery that it may take months to repair the damage.
Ukraine has not officially claimed responsibility, but President Zelensky's advisor hinted at it in a Telegram post: 'Russian oil fuels genocide. We are cutting the supply line.' The line may be cut, but the consequences are falling on Moscow's own citizens.
This is the reality of war made intimate. The black rain does not distinguish between soldier and civilian. It lands on playgrounds and car parks, on the roofs of dachas and the balconies of high-rise blocks. It seeps into the soil, into the water table, into the lungs of children.
The larger question remains: how long can Russia protect its critical infrastructure? The drone attack on Kapotnya is not an anomaly. It is the latest in a series of strikes that have hit fuel depots in Belgorod, an airbase in Crimea, and now the heart of Moscow's oil processing. Each time, Russia claims to have intercepted the majority of drones. Each time, at least one gets through.
The black rain is a metaphor and a fact. It is the price of a war that has now come home, staining the streets of the capital with the very resource the Kremlin thought would shield it from consequence. As one resident put it, wiping the grime from his cheek: 'They told us we were safe in Moscow. Look at my face.'
I am looking. And I am counting the days until the next downpour.
