Ukrainian drones reach deep inside Russia as battle for key city rages on

Ukrainian long-range drones attacked an industrial plant around 1,300 kilometers (800 miles) inside Russia, local officials said Tuesday, while Ukraine’s army remained locked in an intense battle to hold back a Russian push on the key city of Pokrovsk in the eastern Donetsk region.

Two drones targeted an industrial facility in Sterlitamak, a city in Russia’s Bashkortostan region, regional Gov. Radiy Habirov said in an online statement. He didn’t specify what facility was targeted but he said that both drones were shot down. There were no casualties, and the facility was operating normally, he said.

Meanwhile, the city administration reported an explosion at the Sterlitamak Petrochemical Plant caused the plant’s water treatment facility to partially collapse, adding that the cause of the explosion was not known. The plant, which makes rubber and aviation fuel, is not known to have been attacked before.

Ukraine’s daring strikes deep inside Russia using domestically produced drones have embarrassed Moscow, with officials being unforthcoming about any damage, and unnerved Russians. Ukraine has taken aim at manufacturing plants, oil refineries and military logistics hubs in a bid to disrupt Russia’s war effort almost four years after Moscow launched an all-out invasion.

Explosions were also heard at an industrial area of the Nizhny Novgorod region, some 800 kilometers (500 miles) from Ukraine, where an oil refinery and a petrochemical plant are located, Russian media reported. Officials did not confirm the reports.

Both Bashkortostan and Nizhny Novgorod are among the regions where the Russian Defense Ministry said Tuesday that Ukrainian drones were shot down, claiming that 85 were intercepted overnight.

Ukrainian officials said Russia bombarded the southeastern Dnipropetrovsk region of Ukraine with drones, missiles and artillery overnight, killing one person and injuring 11 others, including two children.

Russia fired seven missiles of various types and 130 strike and decoy drones at Ukraine during the night, Ukraine’s air force said.

Also, Romania’s Defense said Tuesday that Russia carried out two overnight attacks on Ukraine’s Danube port infrastructure, close to the border with the NATO member country.

Two pairs of fighter jets were separately deployed from two different airbases for air policing missions after “numerous explosions were observed on the Ukrainian shore,” the ministry said.

On the battlefield, Russia and Ukraine are fiercely contesting control of Pokrovsk, a Ukrainian stronghold in the Donetsk region that Moscow’s forces have been trying to capture for more than a year.

Russia has in recent months intensified its efforts in the area and has claimed its troops are making progress.

“Russian forces continue to advance in the Pokrovsk direction and appear to be operating with increasing comfort within Pokrovsk itself,” the Institute for the Study of War, a Washington think tank, said late Monday.

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