Russian authorities said a village in the western border region had been evacuated following a series of explosions after a Ukrainian drone crashed and its debris set a nearby warehouse on fire.
KYIV, Ukraine — Residents of a village in Russia’s western border region were evacuated Sunday after debris from a downed Ukrainian drone set a nearby warehouse on fire and triggered a series of explosions, local authorities said.
Footage on social media showed plumes of black smoke rising from the Voronezh region and a series of loud explosions being heard.
Governor Alexander Gusev said the crashed debris caused an “explosive detonation.” No casualties were reported, but residents of nearby villages in the Podgorensky district have been evacuated, the governor said. Roads have also been closed and emergency services, military and government officials are at the scene.
A Ukrainian security official told The Associated Press that the attack took place on a warehouse storing ammunition in the village of Serhiivka in the Voronezh region.
“The enemy has stored boxes of surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles, shells for tanks and artillery, and cartridges for firearms,” said the official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to provide information to the media. “From this warehouse, the occupation forces are supplying ammunition to Ukrainian units.”
The Russian Defense Ministry did not mention the attack in its morning briefing but said its air defense systems had destroyed a Ukrainian drone over the Belgorod region.
Authorities in Russia’s Krasnodar region said on Saturday that a fire at an oil depot had also been caused by falling drone debris. Russia’s emergency services said the blaze had been put out by Sunday morning.
The attack came after a Ukrainian military spokesman told The Associated Press on Thursday that Kiev’s forces had withdrawn from an area outside Khasiv Yar, a strategic town in Ukraine’s Donetsk region that had been reduced to rubble by a month-long Russian offensive.
Russian forces have been making steady advances in Ukraine’s eastern industrial region for months, seemingly trying to engage the defenders in a war of attrition. A joint investigation by independent Russian news outlets Meduza and Mediazona published on Friday found that Russian troops are losing between 200 and 250 soldiers in Ukraine every day.
Military analysts say the fall of Shasiv Yar could cripple Ukraine’s vital supply routes, endanger nearby cities and bring Russia closer to its goal of taking control of the entire Donetsk region.
The Russian attacks have also dealt a major blow to Ukraine’s energy infrastructure, with authorities in Kiev saying on Saturday that two-thirds of the city’s generating capacity had been restored after a recent Russian missile attack destroyed a major power station.
“A huge amount of work has been done,” said Petro Panteleyev, deputy head of Kyiv city administration. “The city’s energy facilities, mostly built in the Soviet era, have been modernized and made much more efficient.”
Russia launched two ballistic missiles and 13 Shahed drones late on Sunday evening, Ukrainian air force officials said. All the missiles were shot down, but officials did not provide details about the missiles’ impact.
Eight people were killed in Russian attacks across Ukraine yesterday, according to local authorities.
Four people were killed in Kherson oblast, Governor Oleksandr Prokudin said, while in Donetsk oblast, Governor Vadim Filashkin said two more were killed in the towns of Nyov and Ukrayinsk. In Dnipropetrovsk, a 65-year-old woman was killed in Russian attacks in the Nikopol district, and in Kharkiv oblast, Governors Serhiy Rysak and Oleg Shnievbov said in separate statements.
In Ukraine, a bus collided with a cargo vehicle, killing 14 people and leaving one survivor, Interior Minister Igor Klimenko said on Saturday evening. The victims included a six-year-old child.
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Associated Press writer Katie Marie Davis in Manchester, England, contributed to this report. Full coverage of the Ukraine war: https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
