More Ukrainian drones attack Russia after planes hit on airfield

[August 31, 2023]  (Reuters) -Ukrainian drones attacked more targets in Russia late on Wednesday, a night after drones struck at least six regions deep within Russia in one of the broadest volleys yet of Kyiv's campaign to turn the tables on Moscow.

One of the drone strikes, targeting an airfield far from Ukraine's borders, destroyed military transport planes on the ground.

In a separate incident, Ukraine's military said six of its servicemen had died on Tuesday in the crash of two helicopters near Bakhmut in the east of the country. It gave no details of what happened, but said all the men were officers.

Late on Wednesday, Russia said its anti-aircraft units had downed two Ukrainian drones in its southern Bryansk region. The head of Crimea, annexed by Russia from Ukraine in 2014, said a Ukrainian cruise missile had been intercepted there.

The previous night, Russian officials described attacks on Bryansk and five other regions, including Moscow region, and Pskov in the north, where four military transport planes were damaged in a huge blaze at an airfield.

The Russian foreign ministry said the attacks would "not go unpunished" and the drones could not have reached so far into Russian territory without Western help.

The attacks coincided with Russia's most severe air strikes on Ukraine's capital for months. Authorities in Kyiv reported at least two people had been killed as debris from intercepted missiles fell in four locations.

Reuters captured footage of a fireball falling out of the night sky close to a supermarket. Moscow said it hit command and intelligence targets.

SIRENS AND EXPLOSIONS AT AIR BASE

In Russia, the governor of Pskov posted video on Telegram showing a huge fire with the sounds of sirens and an explosion at the air base. Other video posted online showed anti-aircraft systems in action around the city, 32 km (20 miles) east of Russia's border with NATO-member Estonia.

Moscow said it had thwarted all the attacks. Russia typically describes all Ukrainian drone strikes as unsuccessful, regardless of the damage on the ground.
 

Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russia was working out where the drones were launched from to prevent further strikes. President Vladimir Putin had been informed immediately, as would be the case in any such "massive attacks", Peskov said.

The Kyiv government confirmed the Russian planes had been destroyed in Pskov, without commenting on the nature of their destruction. It generally withholds comment on strikes on territory inside Russia though it says it has a right to hit military targets.

"Yes, four IL-76 transport planes were destroyed in Pskov at an airfield, they are beyond repair. Also, several other of those (aircraft) are damaged, but the information is being checked," Andriy Yusov, a spokesman for Ukraine’s GUR military agency, told Reuters.

Ukraine's Western allies generally forbid it from using weapons they supply to attack Russia but say Ukraine has a right to carry out such strikes with its own weapons.

ATTACKS BRING WAR HOME TO RUSSIANS

Attacks on Russia in recent weeks, including repeated drone strikes on central Moscow, have brought the war home to many Russians for the first time, even as Ukrainians have spent the past year and a half in constant peril from air strikes.

A plume of smoke is illuminated by a flash of light amid a drone attack in Pskov, Russia, in this still image obtained from social media video released August 30, 2023. TELEGRAM / MIKHAIL VEDERNIKOV/via REUTERS

"So long as Putin remains president, the war will continue. Pulling Russia deeper and deeper into the abyss of chaos," Mykhailo Poldolyak, a senior aide to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy, wrote on X.

Moscow has relentlessly pounded Ukrainian cities with long range missiles and drone strikes throughout the war. Thousands of Ukrainian civilians have been killed.

Ukraine said its air defences had shot down 28 Russian missiles and 15 out of 16 drones fired overnight.

Ukrainian forces have been conducting an offensive for nearly three months. They have yet to achieve a breakthrough of Russia's mined and fortified defences, although they said this week they had penetrated the first main defensive line.

Military spokesman Andriy Kovalyov told national television on Thursday that Ukrainian forces were making progress in the east, near Bakhmut, and in the Melitopol sector, where they are trying to move southward to the Sea of Azov.

Russian military accounts spoke of forces repelling five attempted Ukrainian advances in the east.

On the outskirts of St Petersburg, followers of Yevgeny Prigozhin, boss of Russia's Wagner private army, paid tribute at a leafy cemetery where he was buried six days after being killed in a plane crash. A tribute left beside flowers read: "To be a warrior is to live forever".

The Kremlin said foul play was one of the causes being investigated for the crash.

"It is obvious that different versions are being considered, including the version - you know what we are talking about – let's say, a deliberate atrocity," spokesman Peskov said.

Prigozhin, two top Wagner lieutenants and four bodyguards were among 10 people who died when his private jet crashed in unexplained circumstances on Aug. 23, two months after Wagner marched on Moscow in a brief mutiny.

The Kremlin has rejected as an "absolute lie" Western suggestions that Putin was responsible.

(Reporting by Pavel Polityuk, Anna Pruchnicka and Reuters bureaux; Writing by Peter Graff and Ron Popeski; Editing by Philippa Fletcher, Grant McCool and Alex Richardson)

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