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Ukraine Thursday launched its largest drone attack on Moscow in years, sparking fires, hitting a major oil refinery and forcing evacuations at the country's largest airport.Russia vowed to retaliate for the attack as AFP reporters saw dramatic scenes of black smoke billowing over the capital's southern skyline and drops of black rain mixed with soot falling from the sky.At least 17 people were wounded in the strikes, which also set a shopping centre and apartment building ablaze, authorities said.The attack came as Russian President Vladimir Putin hosted Southeast Asian leaders at a summit in the central city of Kazan, about 700 kilometres (435 miles) east of Moscow.The Russian leader was yet to comment on the strikes, despite issuing delivering press statements through the day, though his Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov vowed Moscow would retaliate with its own "massive" strikes on Ukraine.Ukraine's Volodymyr Zelensky said the attack was an "absolutely justified response" to deadly strikes on Kyiv — including one earlier this week on a landmark cathedral and a Unesco-protected 11th-century monastery.He said he wanted Russians to put pressure on Putin for the consequences of Europe's worst conflict since World War II."The main thing is that the people of Russia begin to feel that it is one man, Putin, who is waging this war, while ordinary people pay the price for everything," Zelensky told reporters, including AFP."If Ukraine is going to burn, your Moscow will burn too," he added.Moscow has hit Ukraine with daily barrages of missiles and drones.Airport closures It was the second time this month that Kyiv launched a major attack during an international summit, after striking Saint Petersburg at the start of a landmark economic forum near the city.Moscow's airports were shut for hours, leading to hundreds of flight delays.The country's busiest — Sheremetyevo — announced it had evacuated passengers to "safe locations" during the barrage, before it re-opened at around 11:00am (0800 GMT).Konstantin, walking near the refinery in the southeastern Kapotnya district, told AFP he had "never seen anything like it".Valentina, a 29-year-old manager said she was woken up by the noise."It's really scary," she told AFP, walking in the park with her daughter, the huge column of smoke behind them.Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said that "several drones" had reached the Moscow oil refinery, without specifying damage to the facility.Authorities announced they had closed traffic on streets nearby.Another drone crashed into an apartment building, while drone debris sparked a fire at a shopping centre near the capital's suburbs.One social media video showed smoke pouring from the upper floors of an apartment block, while a woman behind the camera could be heard weeping in distress.'Long-range sanctions' Russian air defences shot down around 180 drones on approach to Moscow, Sobyanin said, while the defence ministry reported it had intercepted more than 500 Ukrainian drones across the entire country overnight.Kyiv has stepped up its drone strikes on Russia in recent months — calling them "long-range sanctions" and hitting oil refineries that fund Moscow's war chest.It was the second Ukrainian strike on the Moscow refinery this week.Diplomatic talks on ending the more than four-year conflict remain stalled."It is time the war ended, and Russia must take the necessary steps in diplomacy," Zelensky said after the strike.Russia also launched more than 200 drones and multiple ballistic missiles at Ukraine between late Wednesday and early Thursday, according to the Ukrainian air force.AFP reporters in Kyiv saw people rushing to shelters in the early hours after air defence blasts rocked over the Ukrainian capital.Putin in Kazan In the hours following the attack, Putin posed for a photo with leaders at a summit of the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) in Kazan and made no mention of the strike in his opening remarks to the forum.Thailand, Vietnam, Cambodia, Laos, Malaysia and Singapore sent their prime ministers to Kazan, while the Philippines sent President Ferdinand Marcos.Putin has long sought to project stability in Russia, despite the economic and social effects of his four-year offensive on Ukraine.But a recent spate of attacks has forced the Kremlin to respond.After Kyiv launched similar attacks on Saint Petersburg earlier this month, the Russian leader promised to bolster air defences.US leader Donald Trump this week said Moscow should "make a deal" to end the Ukraine war. 

Rescue work was suspended and preemptive evacuations began Saturday as Typhoon Fung-wong bore down on the Philippines, days after another storm killed at least 204 people. Fung-wong, expected to be a "super typhoon" before making landfall, bears a huge footprint, with a radius that could cover "almost the entire country," a government meteorologist said. "Apart from the strong winds, we can also expect heavy rains ... 200 mm (eight inches) or higher rainfall, which can cause widespread flooding, not just in low-lying areas," meteorologist Benison Estareja told a press briefing Saturday. "It's also possible that our major river basins will overflow." As of 11am, the typhoon was moving westward toward the Philippines' main island of Luzon, with wind speeds of 140km per hour and gusts of 170kph. In coastal Aurora province, where Fung-wong is expected to make landfall by late Sunday or early Monday morning, rescuers were going door to door encouraging residents to head for higher ground. "We are preemptively evacuating people in areas that may be high-risk for flooding," provincial rescuer Elson Egargue told AFP by phone. **media[378990]** Farther south, on Catanduanes, a small island the state weather service said could take a "direct hit", residents were tying down their houses and putting weights on their roofs. "They decided to do our tradition of strapping down the roofs with big ropes and anchoring them on the ground, so they won't be blown away by the wind," provincial rescue official Roberto Monterola told AFP. Earlier this week, Typhoon Kalmaegi sent floodwaters rushing through the towns and cities of Cebu province, sweeping away cars, riverside shanties and massive shipping containers. The typhoon, the deadliest of 2025 according to disaster database EM-DAT, killed at least 204 people and left 109 missing, according to the latest government figures. At least five more people were killed as it churned across Vietnam on Friday. On Saturday, rescue official Myrra Daven told AFP the approaching storm had forced the suspension of search and rescue activities in the province, home to nearly 70% of Kalmaegi's deaths. "We were ordered to temporarily stop the search, rescue and retrieval at 3pm today," she said. **media[378991]** "We cannot risk the safety of our rescuers. We don't want them to be the next casualties." The government tally of 57 missing in the hard-hit province, meanwhile, would likely rise, Daven said. "We're expecting this number to increase, because there are still areas we cannot penetrate. Some access routes are still blocked by soil and other things," she said. Farther north, provincial officials in Typhoon Fung-wong's path are focused on preventing similar loss of life. "We are hoping that there will be no casualties," said Monterola, the Catanduanes rescuer. "The Philippines has faced a lot of disasters already."