(Reuters) – Russia’s air defence units destroyed 88 Ukrainian drones overnight with no injuries or damage reported, Russian authorities said on Sunday.
The Russian defence ministry said that 52 of the drones were destroyed over the border Belgorod region, while 13 were over the Lipetsk region and nine were over the Rostov region, both in Russia’s southwest.
The rest of the Ukrainian drones were downed over Russia’s Voronezh, Astrakhan, Krasnodar, Ryazan and Kursk regions.
Governors of the Lipetsk and Ryazan regions said overnight that their regions were under air raid alerts but they did not report any damage or injuries.
Russia’s aviation watchdog Rosaviatsia said on Telegram that the airports of Astrakhan, Nizhny Novgorod and Kazan were closed for traffic for several hours overnight to ensure air safety.
Unofficial Russian news Telegram channels reported that the Ukrainian attack on Ryazan and Lipetsk targeted local oil refineries.
Ukrainian Lieutenant Andriy Kovalenko, who heads the Center for Countering Disinformation, part of the National Security and Defense Council, said, without providing evidence or saying directly that Ukrainian drones were involved, that the Novolipetsk Metallurgical Plant in Lipetsk was under attack.
Reuters could not independently verify the reports on what was targeted in the attacks.
Ukraine has said that its attacks in the war, which Russia started three years ago, are aimed at destroying infrastructure key to Moscow’s war efforts and are in response to Russia’s continued bombing of Ukraine.
(Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by Kim Coghill and Christopher Cushing)
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