KYIV: Ukraine’s security services said Saturday they had struck a Russian ammunition depot in a border region, as Moscow’s forces claimed yet another advance on the battlefield.
Ukraine also said it had thwarted a “massive” overnight Russian aerial attack that saw drones launched towards the capital Kyiv.
The attacks come after a week of intense Russian bombardments across Ukraine that killed at least 55 in the central city of Poltava, and seven in Lviv – hundreds of kilometres from the front lines and close to Ukraine’s western border with EU and NATO members.
A large fire and several explosions were reported overnight in the Russian region of Voronezh, which borders Ukraine, prompting officials to evacuate locals living near the blaze.
Russian anti-air defence systems “detected and neutralised a drone” early on Saturday morning over the western part of the region, under 150 kilometres (90 miles) from Ukraine, Voronezh governor Alexander Gusev wrote on Telegram.
“No one was injured,” but when the drone fell it sparked a large fire “that spread to explosive devices and caused them to detonate”, Gusev continued, without providing details of which facility was hit.
Russia claims dramatic increase in ammo production
“A decision was taken to evacuate residents of a village” because of the blaze, he said.
Russian Telegram channels said the fire broke out in a local munitions depot.
Ukraine’s SBU security services later claimed it had hit a Russian ammunition depot.
A source in the SBU told AFP that Kyiv was targeting “military airfields, ammunition depots and infrastructure facilities” in order to “create a demilitarised zone in the regions of Russia adjacent to Ukraine”.
It called them all “legitimate targets”.
Drones target the capital
Ukraine’s air force said Russia fired 67 drones at the country overnight, adding that it shot down 58 of them.
AFP reporters in Kyiv heard loud explosions overnight.
“There are almost no nights when Russian attack drones do not attack the territory of Ukraine. And today was another night, massive drone attack,” the Kyiv city administration said in a social media post on Saturday.
Debris from one downed drone landed near the Ukrainian parliament in the centre of the city.
Local officials in frontline regions in the east and south reported at least six people killed by Russian shelling on Saturday.
Three people were killed in Russian shelling on Kostyantynivka – in the Donetsk region where Russian troops are advancing – the local governor said.
And the heads of the Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv and Kherson regions also reported one person killed in each.
Russia’s military said Saturday it had seized the village of Kalynove, around 25 kilometres southeast of the key logistics hub of Pokrovsk, which Russia is seeking to capture.
President Vladimir Putin said last week that Russia’s “primary objective” in the conflict was to capture the entire Donbas region – which consists of Ukraine’s Donetsk and Lugansk regions.
Moscow claimed to have annexed them, along with the southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in 2022, months after it launched its full-scale military offensive and despite not having full control over them.
The head of Ukraine’s neighbouring Dnipropetrovsk region said the number of wounded in a missile attack on the city of Pavlograd a day earlier had increased to 82, including seven children.
“Sixty people remain in hospital,” Governor Sergiy Lysak said.
On the diplomatic front, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on the sidelines of an economic forum in the country on Saturday.
Meloni reaffirmed her strong support for Kyiv.
Zelensky was using the brief trip to Europe, which also included meetings with Germany’s Olaf Scholz and an address to the Ramstein defence summit, to press allies for more weapons supplies.
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