Moscow accuses Ukraine of drone attacks deep inside Russia, fires fresh barrage of missiles
Russia launched a fresh barrage of missiles toward Ukraine on Monday as it accused Kyiv of striking military airfields deep inside its territory.
Dozens of missiles were launched by Russian forces towards Ukraine on Monday, cutting off water and electricity supplies in some areas, and killing at least one person in the Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih, and at least two people in Zaporizhzhia, according to local authorities.
Debris from one missile also crossed the Ukrainian border, hitting a town in Moldova.
The Ukrainian Air Force said that more than 60 Russian missiles were intercepted. Yet some reached their targets and the shelling cut water and electricity access in Kryvyi Rih and in the southern city of Odesa, after recent shortages across the country due to Russian attacks targeting critical infrastructure.
The Russian Defense Ministry said that Ukraine used drones to attack two Russian military airfields on Monday morning, adding that its air defenses intercepted the attacks “in the Saratov and Ryazan regions,” according to a statement carried on the official Russian news agency RIA Novosti.
“On the morning of December 5, the (Kyiv) regime, in order to disable Russian long-range aircraft, attempted to strike with Soviet-made jet unmanned aerial vehicles [drones] at the Diaghilevo military airfields in the Ryazan region and Engels in the Saratov region,” it said in the statement.
At least two people died and another two people were left injured, following Russian strikes in Zaporizhzhia on Monday.
“The air defense of the Russian Aerospace Forces intercepted these Ukrainian drones flying at low altitude,” it said, adding the the destroyed drones “slightly damaged” two aircraft.
Three people were killed and six injured after a fuel truck exploded at the Russian airfield near the city of Ryazan, Russian state media reported. The explosion occurred at an aircraft parking lot at the airfield, emergency services told state news agency TASS on Monday.
The aftermath of the explosion at the airfield appears to have been captured by Israeli satellite imagery company ImageSat International (ISI), which showed “burn marks and objects” near “a Tu-22M aircraft that was probably damaged,” it told CNN.
The second drone flew to the western Russian city of Engels, where an airbase with the same name is located.
CCTV footage geolocated by CNN appears to show an explosion lighting up the sky at around 6 a.m. local time on Monday morning in Engels, which is around 500 miles southeast of Moscow. The footage, which was shared on social media, was recorded approximately 3.7 miles away from where the Engels-2 airfield is located, a strategic bomber airbase.
Saratov region Governor Roman Busargin, reassured residents on Telegram that no civilian infrastructure was damaged but said “information about incidents at military facilities is being checked by law enforcement agencies.”
He acknowledged information about “about a loud bang and a burst in Engels in the early morning” was spreading on social networks and the media.
Pro-Russian bloggers have said that the incidents were likely an act of sabotage from Ukraine, which has not confirmed that it attacked either airfield.
-cnn
