The Russian Defence Ministry said its border region was hit by dozens of Ukrainian drone attacks in the early hours of Friday, while forces in Ukraine announced they had shot down incoming drones from Russia. Ukrainian media reports said a drone attack on the Morozovsk military airfield in the southern Russian region of Rostov had destroyed half a dozen fighter jets on the ground.
Rostov Governor Vasily Golubev reported a "massive drone attack" and confirmed the district of Morozovsky was targeted. He said on Telegram that an electrical substation had been damaged and some residents were left without power but did not mention the airfield. Telegram channels shared images of fireballs in the sky and quoted residents who reported the sound of explosions around the airfield.
A further eight jets were damaged, the Ukrainian reports said, citing security service sources who believe at least 20 Russian soldiers were either killed or injured. The reports said the attack was carried out by the Ukrainian secret service SBU but there was no independent confirmation of this. The military airfield is around 270 kilometres from the front line.
A statement from Moscow's Defence Ministry said Russia's air defences had intercepted a total of 53 missiles, 44 of which were in the Rostov region. Russia, which has been waging war against its neighbour Ukraine for more than two years, is increasingly coming under fire - particularly in the border region. Russian military infrastructure had often been the target of such attacks as Ukraine looks to turn the tables.
Kiev's decision to hit Russia itself is one of the reasons German Chancellor Olaf Scholz is against supplying Ukraine with Taurus long-range missiles, which could be used to strike targets deeper into Russia and implicate Nato further in the conflict. Lithuanian Prime Minister Ingrida Simonyte announced the imminent purchase and delivery of around 3,000 drones for Ukraine following a meeting with her Ukrainian counterpart Denys Shmyhal on Friday.
The unmanned aerial vehicles, worth a total of around $21.6 million, should reach the front line by the end of this year, Simonyte said in Vilnius. The damage and number of casualties from Ukrainian drone strikes on Russia are insignificant compared to the carnage in Ukraine over the last two years, although Kiev reported Russia's latest drone bombardment had been unsuccessful.
The Ukrainian Air Force said on Telegram that it had shot down all 13Iranian-made Russian drones that targeted the country's southern and south-eastern regions overnight.
Energy supply facilities in the Odessa region were said to have been one target of the aerial attack. The Russian military also fired five missiles at targets in Ukraine from Russia's border region of Belgorod during the night, it added.
In the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk, at least two civilians were killed and five injured by Russian shelling in the settlement of Niu-York and the town of Pokrovsk, officials said. Several dozen buildings were damaged. In the neighbouring Kharkiv region, one person was also killed and two others were injured on Thursday by a Russian rocket while working in the fields.
Russia in recent weeks has intensified the use of explosive-laden drones to attack Ukraine. According to the British Ministry of Defence (MoD), Russia is redistributing shares in previously nationalised companies to entrepreneurs who are loyal to the Kremlin and support the war against Ukraine. London believes the aim of this is linked to President Vladimir Putin's speech to the nation in February, in which he called for the formation of a new nationalist elite created by the war. - dpa
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