kyiv claimed responsibility for a strike on a Russian munitions depot in a border region on Saturday, with Moscow claiming the capture of a new village in eastern Ukraine.
Ukraine also said it had countered a “massive” drone attack directed towards the capital, kyiv, during the night from Friday to Saturday.
It comes after a week of intense Russian shelling that killed at least 55 people in Poltava, in central Ukraine, and seven others in Lviv, in the west, where hundreds of people attended the funeral of a mother and her three daughters on Friday. Lviv, nearly a thousand kilometers from the front, is very close to Ukraine’s western border shared with EU and NATO countries.
Russia also announces almost daily that it has destroyed Ukrainian drones launched against its territory.
A major fire causing the detonation of explosives broke out on Saturday after a Ukrainian drone attack in the Russian region of Voronezh, bordering Ukraine, and an evacuation of residents was ordered, the local governor announced.
Russian air defense systems “detected and neutralized a drone” early in the morning, Governor Alexander Gusev wrote on Telegram.
Although “no one was injured”, the fall of the drone caused a fire on the ground “which spread to explosive objects, and a detonation occurred”, he indicated, without giving further details on the nature of these objects.
Evacuation of a Russian village
Due to the fire, “it was decided to evacuate the inhabitants of a village” to neighboring localities, according to the same source.
According to Russian Telegram channels, the fire broke out in an ammunition depot.
The Ukrainian Security Service (SBU) later claimed to have struck an ammunition depot.
An SBU source told AFP that kyiv was targeting “military airfields, ammunition depots and infrastructure” with the aim of “creating a demilitarized zone in the Russian regions bordering Ukraine.”
According to the Ukrainian air force, Russia launched 67 drone attacks against Ukraine during the night, and 58 of these drones were shot down.
AFP journalists in kyiv heard loud explosions during the night.
Drone attack on kyiv
“There is almost no night without Russian drone attacks on the territory of Ukraine. And today we had another massive night drone attack,” the Kiev municipality wrote on social networks on Saturday.
The debris of a downed drone fell near the Ukrainian parliament, in the city centre.
Local officials on the front lines in eastern and southern Ukraine on Saturday reported at least six deaths in Russian shelling.
Three people died in the industrial town of Kostyantynivka in the eastern Donetsk region. Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv and Kherson regions each reported one death.
The Russian army claimed Saturday the capture of a new village in eastern Ukraine, where it continues its advance against outnumbered Ukrainian troops lacking firepower.
Capture of a Ukrainian village
Russian forces have “liberated the town of Kalynove” in the Donetsk region, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement.
The village is located about 35 kilometers from Pokrovsk, an important logistics hub that has been the target of Russian troops for several weeks, who are getting closer and closer.
Despite a surprise cross-border attack launched by kyiv on August 6 in the Kursk region, Moscow continues to steadily gain ground in the Ukrainian region of Donetsk, which remains the epicenter of the fighting.
On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin displayed his unwavering determination to conquer all of Donbass, the vast industrial zone in eastern Ukraine that includes the Donetsk region.
He also said he was willing to hold talks with kyiv on the basis of those in spring 2022, if Ukraine requests them, while Moscow had previously said it ruled out any discussions due to the Ukrainian attack in the Kursk region.
On the diplomatic front, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met with Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Saturday on the sidelines of an economic forum on the shores of Italy’s Lake Como.
Mme Meloni assured Ukraine of her unwavering support. “We must not fall into the trap of Russian propaganda” by believing that Ukraine’s fate was sealed, she warned.
The day before, Mr Zelensky had participated in a meeting of kyiv’s international supporters in Germany and met Chancellor Olaf Scholz, an opportunity to demand “more weapons”.