Ukrainian drones strike six Russian regions, destroy planes at airfield

MOSCOW – Ukrainian drones struck targets in at least six regions deep within Russia on Wednesday, including an airfield where they destroyed military transport planes, in one of the broadest volleys yet of Kyiv’s campaign to turn the tables on Moscow.

Attacks by unmanned aircraft were reported in Pskov, Bryansk, Kaluga, Orlov and Ryazan regions, as well as the Russian-occupied Crimean peninsula.

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.

In Pskov – in northern Russia, more than 600km from Ukraine – a huge fire erupted at a military airfield that garrisons elite paratroopers. Tass news agency reported that at least four giant Il-76 transport planes were damaged, two of which “burst into flames”.

The attacks coincided with Russia’s most severe air strikes on Ukraine’s capital for months. The authorities in Kyiv reported that at least two people were 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, detonating in a huge explosion that lit up nearby apartment blocks. Moscow said it hit command and intelligence targets.

Footage published by Pskov's governor on the Telegram messaging app shows smoke from a large fire as the sounds of sirens and an explosion ring out. Other reports on Telegram channels indicated anti-aircraft systems in action around the city, which is just 32km east of the Estonian border.

Moscow said it thwarted all the attacks on Russia. 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 was informed immediately, as would be the case in any such “massive attacks”, Mr Peskov said.

Kyiv confirmed that the Russian planes were destroyed in Pskov, without commenting on the nature of the incident. It generally withholds comment on strikes 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,” Mr Andriy Yusov, a spokesman for Ukraine’s GUR military agency, told Reuters.

Russian military and defence officials said three Ukrainian drones were shot down over the southern Bryansk region, one over the central Orlov region and one over the Ryazan region south of Moscow. The airspace around Moscow's Vnukovo airport was closed briefly, Tass reported.

A Russian aircraft also destroyed four Ukrainian fast-attack boats carrying up to 50 paratroopers in an operation on the Black Sea, the military said.

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.

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 shot down 28 Russian missiles and 15 out of 16 drones fired overnight.

“Kyiv has not experienced such a powerful attack since spring. The enemy launched a massive, combined attack using drones and missiles,” Mr Serhiy Popko, the head of the city’s military administration, said on Telegram.

At the front line, Ukrainian forces have been advancing in a summer offensive for nearly three months. They have yet to achieve a breakthrough of Russia’s heavily mined and fortified defences, although they have claimed in just the past week to have finally penetrated the first main defensive line.

The drone attacks came as US Secretary of State Antony Blinken announced a new package of military assistance to aid Ukraine in its fight against Russia, which launched a full-scale invasion of its neighbour in February 2022.

The package includes additional mine-clearing equipment, missiles for air defence, plus ammunition for artillery and small arms.

Ukraine is using vast amounts of ammunition in some of the heaviest fighting of the war as it presses its summer counter-offensive in the south and east, where Russian forces are deeply entrenched.

On Tuesday, mercenary boss Yevgeny Prigozhin was buried in a leafy cemetery on the outskirts of St Petersburg, six days after he was killed in an unexplained plane crash north of Moscow.

He, two top lieutenants of his Wagner group and four bodyguards were among 10 people who died when his Embraer Legacy 600 private jet crashed on Aug 23.

He died two months after staging a brief mutiny against the Russian defence establishment in the biggest challenge to Mr Putin's rule since he rose to power in 1999.

Moscow said it is investigating the crash and has denied any involvement, but in Washington, White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre gave her strongest statement yet about a possibility that Mr Putin directed the killing.

"We all know that the Kremlin has a long history of killing opponents," she noted. "It's very clear what happened here."

Russia informed Brazil's aircraft investigation authority that it would not probe the crash of the Brazilian-made Embraer under international rules "at the moment", the Brazilian agency told Reuters on Tuesday.

Russia’s aviation authority is not obligated to follow global investigation protocols as the flight from Moscow to St Petersburg was domestic. REUTERS