Russia says 54 Ukrainian drones shot down overnight

By : AFP

Date: 18 September 2024 11:07am WAT

Black smoke billows over the city after drone strikes in the western Ukrainian city of Lviv on September 19, 2023, amid Russia's military invasion on Ukraine. - Drones attacked Ukraine's western city of Lviv early on September 19, and explosions rang out, causing a warehouse fire and wounding at least one person. Several waves of drones buzzed overhead, starting around 0130 GMT, and an AFP journalist heard numerous explosions and movements of heavy vehicles through the streets during the nightly curfew. (Photo by YURIY DYACHYSHYN / AFP)

Russia said Wednesday that it downed 54 Ukrainian drones launched overnight, half over the Kursk border region where Ukraine forces have pushed a counteroffensive since August.

“Air defense systems destroyed 54 Ukrainian drones,” the defense ministry said, with 27 in Kursk and the others in the neighboring Bryansk, Smolensk, Belgorod and Oryol regions.

In Belgorod, four people were injured and hospitalized after a drone strike, its governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said on Telegram.

Another drone crashed at Toropets, a town in the Tver region around 400 kilometres (250 miles) northwest of Moscow, causing a fire and prompting a “partial evacuation of residents”, regional governor Igor Rudenya posted.

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“The situation is under control,” he added, without specifying the site of the fire, which Russian media reports said was at a munitions depot.

Russia has recently announced shooting down Ukrainian drones almost daily in response to what Kyiv says are retaliatory strikes for Russian attacks during its offensive launched in February 2022.