32 Ukrainian drones have been shot down over Russia, Moscow officials said, a day after an 18-hour aerial barrage across Ukraine killed at least 39 civilians.
Drones were seen in the skies over Russia’s Moscow, Bryansk, Oryol, and Kursk regions, the defence ministry said. It added that all the drones had been destroyed by air defences.
Cross-border shelling also killed two people in Russia. A man died and four people were injured when a missile struck a home in the Belgorod region late on Friday evening, regional head Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote on social media, and a nine-year-old was killed in the Bryansk region, said local governor Aleksandr Bogomaz.
Cities across western Russia have come under regular attack from drones since May, with Russian officials blaming Kyiv.
Ukrainian officials never acknowledge responsibility for attacks on Russian territory or the Crimean peninsula, but larger aerial strikes against Russia have previously followed heavy assaults on Ukrainian cities.
Russian drone strikes against Ukraine continued on Saturday, with the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces reporting that 10 Shahed drones had been shot down across the Kherson, Khmelnytskyi and Mykolaiv regions.
On Friday, Moscow’s forces launched 122 missiles and dozens of drones across Ukraine in an onslaught described by one air force official as the biggest aerial barrage of the war.
As well as the 39 deaths, at least 160 people were wounded and an unknown number were buried under rubble in the assault, which damaged a maternity hospital, apartment blocks and schools.
Western officials and analysts recently warned that Russia had limited its cruise missile strikes for months in an apparent effort to build up stockpiles for massive strikes during the winter, hoping to break the Ukrainians’ spirit.
Fighting along the front line is largely bogged down by winter weather after Ukraine’s summer counter-offensive failed to make a significant breakthrough along the 620-mile line of contact.
Russia’s aerial attacks have also sparked concern for Ukraine’s neighbours.
Poland’s defence forces said on Friday that an unknown object had entered the country’s air space before vanishing from radars, adding that all indications pointed to it being a Russian missile.
Speaking to Russian state media outlet RIA Novosti Saturday, Russian diplomat Andrei Ordash said: “We will not give any explanations until we are presented with concrete evidence because these accusations are unsubstantiated.”
