Local officials reported a fresh series of attacks carried out by Ukraine in Russian territory amidst the ultimate day of a presidential poll poised to prolong President Vladimir Putin’s term for an additional six years. The onslaught reportedly claimed at least two lives, one of whom was a teenager.
According to the authorities, a drone crashed into a refinery in the Krasnodar area causing a fire that was doused after several hours. The incident led to the death of a refinery employee due to a cardiac arrest.
Over recent periods, Ukrainian drone attacks have targeted refineries and oil terminals, escalating assaults on Russia, including long-range drone strikes and purported invasions by Russian proxies based in Ukraine, commented Russian officials.
The Russian military department stated that 35 Ukrainian drones, with four in the Moscow area, were brought down overnight. Sergei Sobyanin, the Moscow Mayor, added that a fifth drone, near the city’s Domodedovo airport, was neutralised on Sunday morning without causing casualties or wreckage.
The military department revealed that drone interceptions also occurred over the Kaluga region to the south of the Russian capital, and in the Yaroslavl area northeast of Moscow. The strikes on the Yaroslavl area, approximately 800 kilometres (500 miles) from the Ukrainian frontier, were among Ukraine’s longest strikes so far.
Further Ukrainian drones fell over regions bordering Ukraine, including Belgorod, Kursk, Rostov, and the southern Krasnodar regions, said the defence department. A conflict in Belgorod on Sunday morning led to the death of a 16-year-old girl, injured her father, and a succeeding strike killed another man and caused injuries to 11 others, noted governor Vyacheslav Gladkov.
Moreover, a drone attack on a military base in Transnistria, the separatist republic of Moldova, caused the destruction of a helicopter and triggered a fire. The region’s pro-Russia authorities pointed fingers at Ukraine for the strike.
Unlike these claims, the Bureau for Reintegration Policies stated that it couldn’t “verify any attack” on Transnistria, labelling the reports as an “effort to generate dread and chaos in the area”.
Over the past few days, Ukraine has conducted a series of drone raids, which Mr Putin perceives as Ukraine’s attempt to threaten residents and disrupt Russia’s presidential election.
During a security council meeting on Friday, a pledge was made that Russia would not let any attacks from the enemy go unpunished. The conviction is that such actions will only unify the people of Russia even more. On Sunday, news broke of two Russian ballistic missiles striking Mykolaiv, a city in southern Ukraine, leaving a minimum of five injured, as revealed by the region’s governor Vitaliy Kim on Telegram. Adding to this, the Ukrainian military confirmed that 14 Russian drones were taken down in the Odesa area on the same day, after a Russian missile attack on the southern port city on Friday resulted in the unfortunate loss of at least 21 lives. This report is as per the Associated Press.