KYIV, September 9 ------ Ukraine's security services said they had struck a Russian ammunition factory in a border region, as Moscow's forces claimed yet another advance on the battlefield. Ukraine also said it had thwarted a "massive" overnight Russian aerial attack that saw drones launched toward the capital Kyiv.
The attacks come after a week of intense Russian bombardments across Ukraine that killed at least 55 in the central city of Poltava, and seven in Lviv hundreds of kilometers from the frontlines and close to Ukraine's western border with European Union and North Atlantic Treaty Organization members. A large fire and several explosions were reported overnight in Russia's Voronezh region, which borders Ukraine, prompting officials to evacuate locals living near the blaze.
Russian anti-air defense systems "detected and neutralized a drone" early on Saturday morning over the western part of the region, under 150 kilometers (90 miles) from Ukraine, Voronezh Gov. Alexander Gusev wrote on Telegram. "No one was injured," but when the drone fell, it sparked a large fire "that spread to explosive devices and caused them to detonate," he added, without providing details of which facility was hit. "A decision was taken to evacuate residents of a village" because of the blaze, the governor said. Russian Telegram channels said the fire broke out in a local munitions depot.
The Security Service of Ukraine, or SBU, later claimed it had hit a Russian ammunition depot. A source in the SBU told Agence France-Presse (AFP) that Kyiv was targeting "military airfields, ammunition depots and infrastructure facilities" to "create a demilitarized zone in the regions of Russia adjacent to Ukraine." It called them all "legitimate targets."
Drones target capital
Ukraine's air force said Russia fired 67 drones at the country overnight, adding that it shot down 58 of them. AFP reporters in Kyiv heard loud explosions overnight. "There are almost no nights when Russian attack drones do not attack the territory of Ukraine. And today was another night, massive drone attack," the Kyiv city administration said in a social media post on Saturday. Debris from one downed drone landed near the Ukrainian parliament in the center of the city.
In the country's east, three people were killed in Russian shelling on Kostyantynivka — in the Donetsk region where Russian troops are advancing — the governor there said. Russia's military said on Saturday it had seized the village of Kalynove, about 25 km (16 mi) southeast of the key logistics hub of Pokrovsk, which Russia is seeking to capture. Russian President Vladimir Putin said last week that Russia's "primary objective" in the conflict was to capture the entire Donbas region which consists of Ukraine's Donetsk and Luhansk regions. Moscow claimed to have annexed them, along with the southern Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions in 2022, months after it launched its full-scale military offensive and despite not having full control over them.
Source: manilatimes.net
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