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| Associated Press |
Strike follows similar attacks on Russian strategic-aviation air bases hundreds of miles from the Ukrainian border
Russia said drones struck an airfield in the city of Kursk on Tuesday, igniting a fuel-storage facility, in what Moscow said was the third long-range attack by Ukrainian forces on its air bases in two days.
The attack on the Kursk airport, which was closed to civil aviation after Russia invaded Ukraine in February, followed Monday’s strikes on Russian strategic-bomber bases in Engels and Diagilevo. Both bases are hundreds of miles from Ukrainian-controlled territory. Kursk is around 65 miles from the Ukrainian border.
The Ukrainian government usually refrains from claiming strikes on Russian territory and hasn’t commented on this week’s strikes. On Monday, Ukrainian officials hinted that their weapons were capable of reaching that far. Russia’s Ministry of Defense said Monday’s attack killed three service members and damaged two aircraft.
Russian President Vladimir Putin on Tuesday gathered his national-security council for a meeting on how to guarantee “internal security,” according to state media.
While Ukraine lacks the kind of long-range cruise and ballistic missiles Moscow has rained on Ukrainian cities for the past nine months, Western officials say that Kyiv has partially offset that asymmetry with attacks on strategic targets deep in Russian territory. Those include the October strike against the bridge linking Russia to Crimea and the August destruction of several military aircraft at the Saki air base.
It couldn’t be established what weapons were used in these raids. Russia said Monday’s attacks on Engels and Diagilevo were carried out with Soviet-designed jet drones, without providing more details. Tu-141 Strizh reconnaissance drones, designed in the 1970s and originally manufactured in Ukraine, have a range of hundreds of miles. If outfitted with a modern warhead and navigation system, they essentially function like a cruise missile, military analysts say. --->READ MORE HERE
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| Ukrainian Presidential Press Office via AP |
Drones struck inside Russia’s border with Ukraine on Tuesday in the second day of attacks exposing the vulnerability of some of Moscow’s most important military sites, experts said.
Ukrainian officials did not formally confirm carrying out drone strikes inside Russia, and they have maintained ambiguity over previous high-profile attacks.
But Britain’s Defense Ministry said Russia was likely to consider the attacks on Russian bases more than 500 kilometers (300 miles) from the border with Ukraine as “some of the most strategically significant failures of force protection since its invasion of Ukraine.”
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Russian authorities will “take the necessary measures” to enhance protection of key facilities. Russian bloggers who generally maintain contacts with officials in their country’s military criticized the lack of defensive measures.
A fire broke out at an airport in Russia’s southern Kursk region that borders Ukraine after a drone hit the facility, the region’s governor said Tuesday. In a second incident, an industrial plant 80 kilometers (50 miles) from the Ukrainian border was also targeted by drones, which missed a fuel depot at the site, Russian independent media reported. --->READ MORE HEREFollow links below to +++++relevant+++++ and related stories:
+++++Russia-Ukraine News LATEST UPDATES: (REUTERS) (AP) (NY POST) and (WSJ)+++++
+++++Satellite images of Russian airbase in Engels show damaged aircraft+++++
+++++Ukraine appears to expose Russian air defence gaps with long-range strikes+++++
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