UKRAINIAN defenders have attacked military facilities across Russia with drones in a “revenge blitz” against Putin, reports have claimed.
It is understood that more than 70 drones were used for attacks in Moscow, Belgorod, Tula, Tver, and Bryansk in a massive strike – a day after an 18-hour aerial barrage across Ukraine killed at least 39 civilians.
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Ukrainian media reported a group of UAVs hit the Kremniy El plant, one of the largest manufacturers of electronics for Russian military equipment.
It reportedly included long-range missiles and Pantsir anti-aircraft systems.
Despite many hitting their targets successfully, the Russian air defense was able to shoot down some drones, Suspilne.media reported.
“Unlike the Russian terrorist attacks on the territory of Ukraine, the Security and Defense Forces attacked exclusively the enemy’s military facilities,” sources told the Ukranian outlet.
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Earlier today, Russia’s Ministry of Defense announced it had allegedly repelled a drone attack.
Two children were reportedly killed and several people were injured as a result of a Ukrainian strike on the centre of the Russian provincial capital of Belgorod, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov claimed on Saturday.
Gladkov said a residential area had been hit.
Cities across western Russia have come under regular attack from drones since May, with Russian officials blaming Kyiv.
Ukrainian officials haven’t acknowledged responsibility for attacks on Russian territory or the Crimean peninsula.
But larger aerial strikes against Russia have previously followed heavy assaults on Ukrainian cities.
Russian drone strikes against Ukraine continued on Saturday, with the General Staff of the Ukrainian Armed Forces reporting that 10 Iranian-made Shahed drones had been shot down across the Kherson, Khmelnytskyi, and Mykolaiv regions.
On Friday, Moscow’s forces launched 122 missiles and dozens of drones across Ukraine, an 18-hour onslaught described by one air force official as the biggest aerial barrage of the war.
As well as the 39 deaths, at least 160 people were wounded and an unknown number were buried under rubble in the assault, which damaged a maternity hospital, apartment blocks, and schools.
Russia’s ongoing aerial attacks have also sparked concern for Ukraines neighbours.
Poland’s defense forces said Friday that an unknown object had entered the country’s airspace before vanishing off radars, and that all indications pointed to it being a Russian missile, AP reports.
Speaking to Russian state media outlet RIA Novosti on Saturday, Russia’s Charge d’Affaires in Poland, Andrei Ordash, said that Moscow would not comment on the event until Warsaw had given the Kremlin evidence of an airspace violation.
“We will not give any explanations until we are presented with concrete evidence because these accusations are unsubstantiated,” he said.
It comes after a hacked document revealed how Putin was humiliated after losing 74 sailors when Ukraine blitzed warship Novocherkassk in a Storm Shadow missile strike.
The embarrassing death toll is far higher than Russia’s claim of one dead, a civilian port worker, and six wounded.
Another 27 were wounded in the attack on Feodosia port in annexed Crimea, according to the source.
Moscow does not dare tell its people about the scale of the deaths and injuries – and has been seeking to downplay the losses.
It amounts to Putin’s largest naval loss in a single incident during the 22-month war.
The destruction of the Novocherkassk landing ship claimed seven times more lives than the sinking of Putin’s prized Moskva.
The new death toll was revealed in a document unearthed by the Ukrainian hacker group Cyber Resistance.
It showed Putin’s naval commander-in-chief Admiral Nikolai Yevmenov had even requested a rare day of mourning following the explosion.
It appears this request was never granted as the Kremlin seeks to downplay the military disaster.
Novocherkassk was likely packed with munitions when it was hit by the Storm Shadow missile on Boxing Day.
The ship was torn apart and left nothing more than a twisted wreck.
It is also known that two pro-Putin media outlets in annexed Crimea – Sevastopol News portal and NTS media outlet – carried reports on the true death toll of 74.
However, the publications quickly removed them – almost certainly based on censorship by the FSB counterintelligence service.
The reports remain available in cached files online.
Putin has repeatedly refused to publish details of losses in a succession of war disasters.
The tyrant is reportedly furious in the wake of the attack, and on Friday launched a “revenge” missile and kamikaze drone onslaught on Ukraine.
At least 30 died and 160 were wounded.
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