Russia stated Sunday it had repelled a “huge” Ukrainian drone assault on vitality and gas vegetation in Moscow and 14 areas, one of many largest such strikes for the reason that begin of the 2 and half-year battle.
Ukraine has repeatedly despatched drones to strike Russia’s vitality infrastructure in latest months, in retaliation for Moscow’s missile assaults which have vastly broken its personal vitality community for the reason that Kremlin first despatched troops into the nation in February 2022.
“It’s solely justified for Ukrainians to answer Russian terror by any
means essential to cease it,” President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on Fb.
The newest barrage noticed 158 drones fired, most of them downed over the areas of Kursk, Bryansk, Voronezh and Belgorod which border Ukraine, Russia’s defence ministry stated.
Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin stated that 10 drones had focused numerous areas in and across the capital.
Considered one of them sparked a hearth at an oil refinery throughout the metropolis limits of the sprawling capital, he stated, whereas a coal-fired energy plant close to the town was additionally reported to have been focused.
The barrage got here simply days after Russia despatched over 200 drones and missiles at Ukraine’s vitality infrastructure, in one of many largest such assaults.
It additionally comes almost a month since Ukraine went on the offensive in Russia’s Kursk area, crossing the border and capturing Russian territory as Russian troops continued their sluggish however regular advance in japanese Ukraine.
Sobyanin stated Sunday morning {that a} downed drone had hit a “technical constructing” on the Moscow oil refinery, owned by the Gazprom vitality big, within the southeast Kapotnya space of the capital.
The mayor later stated “the hearth on the oil refinery has been localised and there’s no menace to folks or the plant’s operation”.
Within the Tver area northwest of Moscow, 5 drones focused the world of Konakovo energy plant and brought about a hearth that was swiftly extinguished, in accordance with governor Igor Rudenya.
• ‘Most huge’ assault –
An area official within the Moscow area, Mikhail Shuvalov, stated on Telegram that three drones had additionally tried to hit the Kashira coal-fired energy station, however that “there have been no victims nor injury and it didn’t catch fireplace”.
Russian navy blogger Rybar, who’s adopted by greater than 1.3 million folks, wrote, “the night time assault by the Ukrainian armed forces was essentially the most huge for the reason that begin of the particular navy operation” in 2022.
Within the metropolis of Belgorod and the encompassing space, governor Vyacheslav Gladkov stated 11 have been injured in a later Ukrainian assault on Sunday afternoon, amongst them two kids and there was widescale injury to blocks of flats and homes.
Within the Donetsk area, Russia is advancing in direction of the town of Pokrovsk and Ukraine’s Commander-in-Chief of the Armed Forces Oleksandr Syrsky wrote on Fb that the “state of affairs is troublesome within the route of the enemy’s predominant offensive”.
Not less than three folks have been killed and 9 injured by shelling of the Donetsk area close to the city of Kurakhove, the regional governor Vadym Filashkin stated.
Russia on Sunday claimed management of two new villages within the area: Ptyche close to Pokrovsk and Vyyimka additional northeast.
• ‘Terrorising Kharkiv’ –
On Sunday afternoon, Russia struck Ukraine’s second largest metropolis of
Kharkiv with missiles, injuring 47 folks together with seven kids, in accordance with the emergency providers.
Nationwide police stated Russia injuring 21 at a procuring centre and 18 at a sports activities centre, of whom 5 have been kids.
The assault brought about “large-scale destruction and fires,” the emergency service stated and “folks may very well be below the rubble”.
An AFP photographer noticed rescuers working within the rubble of the destroyed Sports activities Palace centre with a canine, on the lookout for survivors and bringing out a type of injured on a stretcher.
Exterior the procuring centre, there have been burnt-out vehicles and facades torn off buildings and flames from a broken fuel pipe.
Prosecutors stated Russia fired two Iskander-M ballistic missiles at a procuring centre and three on the Sports activities Palace whereas three different missiles hit close to the sports activities centre.
The vitality ministry stated that Russia had attacked an vitality facility within the metropolis, with out giving particulars.
Kharkiv additionally got here below assault Friday with an aerial strike killing seven together with a teenage woman.
“Russia is as soon as once more terrorising Kharkiv, placing civilian infrastructure and the town itself,” Zelensky wrote on Fb, interesting for extra weapons to fend off assaults.
He urged international leaders to point out the “braveness to offer Ukraine every little thing it must defend itself.”
