Ukraine launched drones deep into Russia early Saturday — over 600 miles from the front lines of the war — striking residential buildings and an industrial facility, according to reports.
Eight drones blasted into the city of Kazan, which is in the republic of Tatarstan, 400 miles east of Moscow, in the “massive” attack, Gov. Rustam Minnikhanov’s office said.
They mainly struck high-rises, except one that shot into a river, while several others were intercepted.
Ukraine did not immediately acknowledge the attack.
No deaths were recorded but flights out of Kazan International Airport and Gagarin Airport, in the city of Saratov, also in the southwest of the country, were temporarily halted. Some schools were evacuated and mass gatherings scheduled for the weekend were also canceled, according to reports.
Kazan has come under attack from drones before, but Saturday’s strikes marked the first time they directly targeted residential buildings in the city home to 1.3 million people, the Moscow Times reported.
Russia, meanwhile, launched 113 drones into Ukraine overnight into Saturday, Ukrainian officials said, 57 of which were shot down and another 56 were “lost,” likely due to electronic jams.
The Kremlin also targeted Kyiv with ballistic missiles, while shelling was reported in several other regions. Among the locations hit were an oncology center in the southern city of Kherson and apartment buildings in Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in a post on social media.
Patients and medical staff at the cancer center were not injured because they had taken shelter, Zelensky said, noting that it was the only place in the city offering radiotherapy treatment. “The Russians could not have been unaware that this is specifically a medical facility, and one of great value to the residents of Kherson. So this deliberate strike was nothing less than a heinous act of cruelty against civilians,” he said in one of a series of posts.
“But they will definitely answer – the time will come,” he said.
Seven people were reported injured in Zaporizhzhia and six in Kharkiv, officials said.
The Ukrainian military has been preparing for a potential Russian offensive in Zaporizhzhia, according to the Kyiv Independent.
The latest “targeted kick” was nothing more than “bullying,” Zelensky said, adding that Ukrainian defense was “absolutely fair.”
“We will certainly continue to strike Russian military facilities … infrastructure that is used in such terror against our people,” he added.
Since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine nearly three years ago, Kyiv has ramped up strikes targeting its enemy’s military and industrial facilities, with the help of US- and UK-made weaponry.
The massive overnight exchange followed six people including a child reportedly killed Friday in a Ukrainian strike in Russia’s western Kursk border region. The attack came after Moscow launched missiles at Kyiv, damaging an embassy building.
Meanwhile, Moscow’s troops continued slowly advancing in eastern Ukraine, occupying the Donetsk village of Kostiantynopolske, six miles from the besieged city of Kurakhove.
Russians have made gains throughout the Donetsk region in recent weeks, according to Ukrainian monitoring project DeepState.
With Post wires
