Russia says it repelled a ‘massive’ Ukrainian drone attack

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ADDS: Details on the attacks in Kharkiv and Belgorod, update on injuries in Kharkiv

Russia said on Sunday it had repelled a “massive” Ukrainian drone attack on energy and fuel facilities in Moscow and 14 regions, one of the largest attacks of its kind since the start of the two-and-a-half-year conflict.

Ukraine has repeatedly used drones to attack Russian energy infrastructure in recent months, in retaliation for Moscow's missile attacks that have caused massive damage to Russia's energy grid since the Kremlin first sent troops to the country in February 2022.

“It is fully justified for Ukrainians to respond to Russian terror with all necessary means to stop it,” President Volodymyr Zelensky wrote on Facebook.

In the latest drone attack, 158 drones were fired, most of them over the Kursk, Bryansk, Voronezh and Belgorod regions bordering Ukraine, the Russian Defense Ministry said.

Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said ten drones had attacked various areas in and around the capital.

One of them sparked a fire at an oil refinery within the city limits of the sprawling capital, he said, and a coal-fired power plant near the city was also reportedly targeted.

The attack came just days after Russia deployed more than 200 drones and missiles on Ukraine's energy infrastructure in one of the largest attacks of its kind.

Moreover, it has been almost a month since Ukraine went on the offensive in Russia's Kursk region, crossing the border and seizing Russian territory, while Russian troops continued their slow but steady advance in eastern Ukraine.

Sobyanin said on Sunday morning that a downed drone had hit a “technical building” at energy giant Gazprom's Moscow oil refinery in the capital's southeastern Kapotnya district.

The mayor later said: “The fire at the oil refinery has been contained and there is no danger to people or the operation of the plant.”

In the Tver region, northwest of Moscow, according to Governor Igor Rudenya, five drones targeted the area of ​​the Konakovo nuclear power plant and caused a fire, which was, however, quickly extinguished.

A local official in the Moscow region, Mikhail Shuvalov, said on Telegram that three drones also tried to hit the Kashira coal-fired power plant, but that “there were no casualties or damage, and it did not catch fire.”

Russian military blogger Rybar, who is followed by more than 1.3 million people, wrote: “The night attack by the Ukrainian Armed Forces was the most massive since the start of the special military operation” in 2022.

In the city of Belgorod and the surrounding area, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said that a subsequent Ukrainian attack on Sunday afternoon had injured 11 people, including two children, and caused extensive damage to apartment blocks and houses.

In the Donetsk region, Russia is advancing towards the city of Pokrovsk and the commander-in-chief of the Ukrainian Armed Forces, Oleksandr Syrsky, wrote on Facebook that the “situation in the direction of the enemy's main offensive is difficult”.

At least three people were killed and nine injured in the shelling of the Donetsk region near the town of Kurakhove, said regional governor Vadym Filashkin.

Russia on Sunday claimed control of two new villages in the region: Ptyche near Pokrovsk and Vyyimka further northeast.

On Sunday afternoon, Russia attacked Ukraine's second-largest city, Kharkiv, with rockets, injuring 47 people, including seven children, according to emergency services.

According to the Russian national police, 21 people were injured in a shopping center and 18 people in a sports center, including five children.

The attack caused “widespread destruction and fires,” emergency services said, adding that there could be people under the rubble.

An AFP photographer saw rescue workers with a dog searching for survivors in the rubble of the destroyed sports palace and bringing out an injured person on a stretcher.

Outside the shopping center, burned-out cars, demolished facades and flames from a damaged gas line could be seen.

Prosecutors said Russia fired two Iskander-M ballistic missiles at a shopping mall and three at the Sports Palace, while three more missiles hit near the sports center.

The Energy Ministry said Russia had attacked an energy facility in the city, but did not provide details.

Kharkiv was also attacked on Friday. Seven people were killed in an air raid, including a teenager.

“Russia is once again terrorizing Kharkiv, attacking civilian infrastructure and the city itself,” Zelensky wrote on Facebook, calling for more weapons to repel the attacks.

He called on world leaders to “show the courage to give Ukraine everything it needs to defend itself.”

bur/yad