Kyiv, Ukraine (AP) — The Russian military said Monday it shot down a Ukrainian drone approaching an air base deep in Russia, the second time the facility has been targeted this month — raising questions about the effectiveness of its air defenses. Russia if drones can. fly so far in the country.
The Russian Defense Ministry said the crash occurred in the early hours of Monday and three servicemen were killed by debris at the Engels Air Base, which is home to the Tu-95 and Tu-160 nuclear strategic bombers involved in launching attacks on Ukraine. . in the 10-month war.
Engels is located in the Saratov region of Russia on the Volga River, more than 600 kilometers (more than 370 miles) east of the border with Ukraine.
The Russian planes were not damaged, the ministry said.
Speaking on Ukrainian television on Monday, Ukrainian Air Force spokesman Yurii Ihnat did not directly acknowledge his country’s involvement in Monday’s crash, but said: “These are the consequences of Russian aggression.”
He added: “If the Russians thought the war wouldn’t hit them deep behind their lines, they were sorely mistaken.”
Ukrainian officials have never confirmed sending drones to Russia. They have maintained ambiguity over previous high-profile attacks, including drone strikes on Russian military bases earlier this month.
On December 5, unprecedented drone strikes on Engels and the Dyagilevo base in Russia’s western Ryazan region killed a total of three servicemen and wounded four others. The attacks on the air bases were followed by a massive barrage of retaliatory missiles in Ukraine, which hit homes and buildings and killed civilians.
In Ukraine, at least four civilians have been injured by Russian shelling in five regions of the country’s southeast over the past 24 hours, according to the deputy head of Ukraine’s presidential office, Kyrylo Tymoshenko. Overall, the intensity of bombing from Sunday night through Monday was significantly lower.
For the first time in weeks, Russian forces did not bomb Dnipropetrovsk region, which borders the partially occupied southern regions of Kherson and Zaporizhzhia, its governor, Valentyn Reznichenko, said on Telegram.
“It’s the third quiet night in 5.5 months since the Russians started shelling” the areas around the city of Nikopol, Reznichenko wrote. Nikopol is across the Dnieper River from the Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, which is under the control of Russian forces.
Ukrainian-controlled areas in the nearby Kherson region have been shelled 33 times in the past 24 hours, according to the Ukrainian governor of Kherson, Yaroslav Yanushevich. There were no victims.
On Sunday, Russian forces attacked the city of Kramatorsk, where Ukrainian forces are stationed. Three rockets hit an industrial plant and damaged residential buildings, but no casualties were reported, according to local officials.
In the partially occupied eastern region of Donetsk, fierce fighting continues around the city of Bakhmut, which Russian forces have been trying to capture for weeks to consolidate their control over eastern Ukraine.
In the nearby Lugansk region, which is almost entirely under Moscow’s control, Russian forces are “suffering huge casualties and medical facilities are overwhelmed with wounded soldiers,” Ukrainian Luhansk governor Serhiy Haidai told Ukrainian television on Monday. The Russian military is redeploying paratroopers from the Kherson region to the area, Haidai said.
He also said that Russian forces had withdrawn from their military operations command post in the city of Kreminna as Ukrainian forces were closing in on the city after months of intense fighting. Russian forces moved into Kreminna and several other areas in September after withdrawing from the Kharkiv region in eastern Ukraine.
A deadly attack on the city of Kherson on Saturday, resumed by forces from Kyiv last month, killed and wounded dozens. Local residents are lining up to donate blood for the wounded, Janušević said on Monday.
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