Russian bombardments in eastern Ukraine ramped up overnight, killing two people, as Ukraine hit Russia’s Engels military airfield in the country’s southwest region of Saratov with drones.
Both Russia and Ukraine stepped up aerial attacks in the early hours of Thursday as United States President Donald Trump pushes both sides to agree to a ceasefire after more than three years of fighting.
Ukrainian officials in the northeastern Sumy and Kharkiv regions said two people were killed and several others injured after Russia dropped more than three dozen glide bombs on the towns in the border regions.
Russian drone attacks on the town of Kropyvnytskyi, hundreds of kilometres from the front line, wounded 14 people and damaged rail infrastructure.
“Kropyvnytskyi underwent the most massive enemy attack. Peaceful residential buildings were destroyed,” regional governor Andriy Raikovych said.
The Ukrainian Air Force said that the Russian barrage, including on Kropyvnytskyi, consisted of 171 drones, of which 75 were shot down. Another 63 were downed by electronic jamming systems or were lost.
Elsewhere, Ukraine struck Russia’s Engels airbase in the Saratov region with attack drones overnight, causing a fire and explosions in the area, the Ukrainian military said on Thursday.
The airbase hosts Russian strategic bombers that are used to attack Ukraine and also has a warehouse holding cruise missiles and glide bombs, an official at the Security Service of Ukraine said.
Credit: aljazeera.com
