Ukrainian attacks wound six, cause factory fire in Russian border regions, governors say

[July 16, 2024]  (Reuters) -Ukrainian attacks triggered a fire at a factory producing electrical devices and wounded at least six people in Russian areas bordering Ukraine overnight, local governors said on Tuesday.   

A drone attack on a factory in the town of Korenevo in Russia's Kursk region caused the fire which was extinguished by morning and no one was harmed. One person was injured when a drone dropped an explosive device on a house elsewhere in the region, interim governor Alexei Smirnov said.

Images published on his Telegram channel showed the factory's roof engulfed in flames against the night sky. The interior was reduced to charred wreckage.

There was no immediate comment from Ukrainian authorities on the reported attacks which Reuters could not confirm independently.

Russia's Defence Ministry said air defence systems had destroyed 13 Ukrainian drones overnight, including one over the Kursk region.

Vyacheslav Gladkov, the governor of Russia's Belgorod region near the Ukrainian border said four people were injured by Ukrainian shelling. In the Voronezh region, one person was wounded in a drone attack, local governor Alexander Gusev said.

Russia's Kommersant daily newspaper reported on Tuesday that authorities were considering evacuating people from 14 villages in the Belgorod region that often comes under Ukrainian attack.

(Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne and Ronald Popeski in Winnipeg; Editing by Christian Schmollinger, Andrew Heavens and Ros Russell)

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