Ukraine attacks several Russian regions with drones during the night. Fighting continues in the Russian Kursk border region. The aim is to expand the war.
Three days after the surprise advance of Ukrainian troops into the Russian region of Kursk, Ukraine has launched drone attacks on several regions of Russia. After an attack on a military airfield near the city of Lipetsk, around 300 kilometers north of the Ukrainian-Russian border, massive explosions occurred in an ammunition depot during the night. Air raid warnings were also triggered in the neighboring regions of Kursk, Bryansk, Belgorod and Voronezh, as well as in Crimea. Over 70 drones were intercepted, Russian authorities said.
Governor Igor Artamonov announced on Telegram that a state of emergency had been declared around the city of Lipetsk to eliminate the consequences of the explosions. Four villages around the military airport were to be evacuated. According to the governor, public transport was stopped in Lipetsk and the surrounding area. Power outages occurred due to damage to a power plant. Nine people were injured as a result of the attacks. The military airport is a good 280 kilometers as the crow flies from the Ukrainian border.
Ukrainian attacks were also recorded on the annexed Ukrainian Black Sea peninsula of Crimea. Three Ukrainian drones and a “Neptune” missile were shot down over the sea off the port city of Sevastopol, said the city’s Moscow-appointed governor, Mikhail Razvozhayev. In addition, three sea drones were destroyed. “There was no damage to civilian objects in the city,” Razvozhayev stressed on Telegram. Nevertheless, videos of explosions and fires circulated on social networks, which were said to have been recorded mainly around the Belbek military airport.
Further fighting in the Kursk region
Officials said that four more rockets were fired over the Kursk region. Fighting between Ukrainian and Russian troops has been taking place in the area on the border with Ukraine since Tuesday. Ukrainian troops are said to be in control of several Russian towns near the border.
During the fighting in Kursk, fires also broke out after a Ukrainian artillery strike allegedly targeted a Russian military column east of the district town of Rylsk. Local residents took images of burning military equipment that were difficult to verify and shared them on social networks. Several impacts were reported. Another video taken in the morning, which is supposed to show the aftermath of this incident, shows a good dozen partially burnt-out military trucks. There was no independent confirmation of this.
According to military observers, the fighting in the Kursk region did not abate during the night. Both sides are said to have called in reserves. There was initially no reliable information about front shifts.
Ukraine does not disclose details of fighting on Russian territory
The Ukrainian General Staff did not provide any further information on the fighting on Russian territory. The morning report on Facebook only mentioned Russian air and artillery attacks on the border between the north-eastern Ukrainian regions of Chernihiv and Sumy. More than half a dozen towns, especially in the border area with Russia, were affected.
Meanwhile, Ukrainian military observers from the DeepState channel identified an area of around 140 square kilometers in the Kursk region with three villages as being under Ukrainian control. The district town of Sudzha is therefore not under Ukrainian control. There are hardly any recordings of the events due to an information blackout apparently imposed by the Ukrainian side.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky had recently announced that the war would be expanded to include Russia. “Russia has brought the war to our country and should feel what it has done,” the head of state said in his evening video address on Thursday, without going into detail about the fighting in the Kursk region.
Russian drone attacks on Ukraine repelled
Russia also attacked targets in Ukraine with combat drones. The Ukrainian Air Force reported 27 Russian drones of Iranian design, all of which were shot down or intercepted by radio-electronic means. The air defense system was active over the central Ukrainian regions of Kiev and Poltava, Sumy near the border in the northeast, in the south over the Mykolaiv and Kherson regions, and in the east over the Donetsk and Dnipropetrovsk regions. No damage has been reported so far.
At the same time, according to local authorities, at least four civilians were killed and twelve injured in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk as a result of Russian bombings and artillery attacks. At least five injured people were also registered in the neighboring Kharkiv region. Six people were injured in the Kherson region.
Russia began its war of aggression against Ukraine on February 24, 2022. Especially in the border regions, Russians are also feeling the consequences of the war again and again. The damage is usually incomparable to the devastating destruction and the many dead and injured on the Ukrainian side as a result of the Russian attacks.
Source: Stern
I have been working in the news industry for over 6 years, first as a reporter and now as an editor. I have covered politics extensively, and my work has appeared in major newspapers and online news outlets around the world. In addition to my writing, I also contribute regularly to 24 Hours World.
