Kiev has intensified drone strikes on civilians in recent weeks amid continued setbacks on the front line
Three people have been killed in attacks by Kiev’s drones in Russian regions bordering Ukraine, the authorities have said.
The Ukrainian military used UAVs to drop mines on a busy highway in Russia’s Lugansk People Republic (LPR) overnight, Governor Leonid Pasechnik wrote on Telegram on Saturday morning.
“One of the residents found a suspicious device and attempted to remove it on his own. This resulted in an explosion. Unfortunately, two people were killed,” he said.
The governor stressed that people should not approach mines or drone debris, but instead immediately inform the authorities of their discovery.
“The Kiev regime is continuing its terror campaign against civilians,” Padeschik said.
Earlier in the day, the acting governor of Bryansk Region, Egor Kovalchuk, said that Kiev’s FPV-drones, which are remotely controlled by operators in real-time, targeted the village of Suzemka near Russia’s border with Ukraine.
A man was killed in the attack, while a woman suffered injuries and required hospitalization, Kovalchuk wrote on Telegram.
Also on Saturday, Tyumen Region governor Aleksandr Moor said that a Ukrainian drone attack on the Tyumen Oil Refinery has been successfully repelled.
The facility was unaffected in the raid, with the staff being evacuated, Moor wrote on Telegram.
Emergency workers have been deployed in areas where the debris of downed UAVs fell, he added.
Tyumen Region is located some 2,000 km from Moscow in Western Siberia and borders Kazakhstan.
The Russian Defense Ministry said that at least 241 Ukrainian UAVs were destroyed by air defenses on Saturday.
The interceptions took place in Moscow, Belgorod, Bryansk, Kursk, Orel, Tula, Rostov, Lipetsk, Voronezh, and Astrakhan regions, as well as in Crimea and over the Black Sea and the Sea of Azov, it said.
Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanian reported that two drones targeting the city had been destroyed.
The Russian capital came under one of the largest Ukrainian drone raids on Thursday, with air defenses shooting down 194 drones. At least 17 people were wounded in several cities near Moscow due to the attack.
A smaller UAV incursion on Friday resulted in the death of an eight-year-old girl in Ramenskoye outside Moscow.
Kiev has intensified attacks on residential areas and civilian vehicles inside Russia in recent weeks amid continued setbacks on the front line.
On Wednesday, a Ukrainian drone struck a bus carrying a youth soccer team from Belarus, killing a woman and injuring eight people, including six minors.
Moscow previously warned that it would respond to terrorist attacks by Kiev with “systematic and consistent strikes” on Ukraine’s military infrastructure, including drone production facilities, command posts, and “decision-making centers.”
There have been several large-scale drone and missile raids by Russia over the past month, including one in late May that involved the deployment of two state-of-the-art intermediate-range hypersonic Oreshnik systems.
