By South China Morning Post | Created at 2024-10-20 17:35:43 | Updated at 2024-10-20 22:04:18
4 hours ago
Russian air defences shot down more than 100 Ukrainian drones on Sunday over Russia’s western regions, Moscow officials said, while 17 people were injured in the Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih in a ballistic missile attack.
Such large-scale aerial attacks are still relatively rare over Russia two-and-a-half years after Moscow launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The Russian Defence Ministry said 110 drones were destroyed in the overnight barrage against seven Russian regions. Many targeted Russia’s border region of Kursk, where 43 drones were reportedly shot down.
Social media footage appeared to show air defences at work over the city of Dzerzhinsk in the Nizhny Novgorod region, close to a factory producing explosives. Local Governor Gleb Nikitin wrote on social media on Sunday that four firefighters were injured repelling a drone attack over the city’s industrial zone, but did not give further details.
The General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces posted on Telegram that it targeted the state-owned Sverdlov factory, which it said had been making chemical components for artillery ammunition and aerial bombs. It also said a drone sparked a fire at a military airfield in the Lipetsk region. The comments could not be independently verified by Associated Press.
