An overnight Ukrainian drone attack set a Russian munitions depot ablaze in the region of Voronezh near the border between the two neighbors, local authorities said yesterday, after Ukrainian authorities on Saturday reported that Russian strikes overnight had left more than 100,000 households without power in northern Ukraine and cut off the water supply to a regional capital.
“Several drones were detected and destroyed overnight by air defense systems above the Voronezh region,” Voronezh Oblast Governor Alexander Gusev wrote on Telegram yesterday.
“Their falling debris set off a fire in a depot” in the Podgorenski District where “explosives began to detonate,” Gusev said, adding that there were no indications anybody had been hurt.
Photo: Reuters
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s northern Sumy Oblast, which borders Russia, was plunged into darkness after Russian strikes late on Friday damaged energy infrastructure, the Ukrainian Ministry of Energy said on Saturday.
Hours later, the Ukrainian public broadcaster reported that Russian drones hit the provincial capital, also called Sumy, cutting off water by hitting power lines that feed its system of pumps.
Russian state agency RIA cited a local pro-Kremlin “underground” leader as saying that Moscow’s forces overnight hit a plant producing rocket ammunition in the city, which had a prewar population of more than 256,000.
The report did not specify what weapon was used, and the claim could not be independently verified.
Explosions rocked the city during an air raid warning early on Saturday, Ukraine media reports said.
In the Donetsk Oblast in the east, Russian shelling on Friday and overnight killed 11 civilians and wounded 43, Donetsk Governor Vadym Filashkin said on Saturday.
Five people died in the town of Selydove southeast of Pokrovsk, the eastern city that has emerged as a front-line hotspot.
The Ukrainian General Staff on Saturday morning said that Ukrainian and Russian forces clashed 45 times near Pokrovsk over the previous day.
Hours later, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced its troops had captured a village about 30km east of the city.
Three more Ukrainian civilians died in Chasiv Yar, the strategically located town in Donetsk that has been reduced to rubble under a month-long Russian assault, Filashkin said.
Additional reporting by AFP
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