Fire in a residential building in Kursk following the drone strike. Photo: Telegram
One person was killed and 12 more were injured when a Ukrainian drone struck a residential building in the southwestern Russian city of Kursk on Friday, Kursk Governor Alexander Khinshtein has said.
According to Khinshtein, the drone hit a multi-storey apartment block near the city’s railway station, causing a fire that engulfed its top four floors and shattering windows in nearby buildings.
A 45-year-old woman was killed, Khinshtein said, while one of the 12 injured was in a critical condition. Residents of the building had been placed in temporary accommodation at a nearby school, he added, following what he described as an example of “inhumane crimes by Ukrainian Nazis”.
In the nearby city of Belgorod, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said two men were injured in a “targeted” Ukrainian drone attack on the city centre. Both men had been hospitalised, he said, with one in a critical condition.
Ukrainian drones also targeted the Samara region on the Volga River, Governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev said, with air defences intercepting some 13 drones over the region. Authorities closed the region’s airspace and imposed “temporary restrictions” on mobile internet due to the drone risk, he added.
While Fedorishchev made no mention of damage caused by drone strikes, independent Russian and Ukrainian Telegram channels posted footage appearing to show a fire at a Rosneft oil refinery in the city of Syzran, reportedly caused by falling drone debris.
The General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine later confirmed the strike on the Syzran facility, as well as on a Russian military command post in Ukraine’s Russian-occupied eastern Donetsk region.
“The defence forces continue to take measures to undermine the military and economic potential of the Russian occupiers and force Russia to end its armed aggression against Ukraine”, a statement from the General Staff read.
Russia’s Defence Ministry reported on Friday morning that air defences had downed a total of 55 Ukrainian drones over nine regions in the west of the country overnight, as well as over the Sea of Azov.
Meanwhile, Russia has continued to attack civilian targets in the Donetsk and Sumy regions of Ukraine. According to the Ukrainian State Emergency Service, one person was killed and another injured in attacks on Kostiantynivka, and one person was injured in an attack on a petrol station in Sumy on Friday.