A state of emergency has been declared in parts of Russia’s Voronezh region after an ammunitions depot burst into flames following a suspected Ukrainian drone attack, the region’s governor said.
Governor Alexander Gusev wrote on the Telegram messaging app: “Several drones were detected and destroyed overnight by air defence systems above the Voronezh region.”
“Their falling debris set off a fire in a depot” in the Podgorensky district where “explosives began to detonate”, he added.
Mr Gusev said there were no casualties but that some residents in the Podgorensky district of the region were being evacuated.
“Detonation of explosive objects continues,” he said.
A Ukrainian security official told The Associated Press that a strike had been carried out on a warehouse storing ammunition in the village of Serhiivka in the Voronezh region.
“The enemy stored surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles, shells for tanks and artillery, and boxes of cartridges for firearms,” the official said, who spoke on condition of anonymity.
“It is from this warehouse that the occupiers supply ammunition to their troops in Ukraine,” the official added.
Roads in the region were closed, with emergency services, military and government officials working at the scene.
Social media posts also appeared to show smoke arising from the horizon in the Voronezh after the strike.
While Russia’s defence ministry did not address the strike in their morning briefing, it said that air defense systems had destroyed a Ukrainian drone over the Belgorod region.
The ministry also said on Sunday that Iskander ballistic missiles destroyed two launchers for Patriot surface-to-air missile systems in Ukraine’s Odesa region.
The attack took place in the Yuzhne port area, the ministry said on Telegram, adding that a radar station was also destroyed.
A Ukrainian drone strike set fire to an oil depot in the province of Krasnodar in southern Russia on Saturday, authorities said.
Debris from a drone strike reportedly sparked a fire at an oil depot, set fuel tanks ablaze in a separate location and damaged a cellphone tower.
There were no reports of casualties.
Ukrainian drones attacked over fifteen Russian refineries and several oil depots in a sustained attack on Russian infrastructure between January and early April this year, according to the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace.
Earlier this week, Russian forces made gains in eastern and northern Ukraine, with Ukraine’s military confirming on Thursday that it retreated from the Kanal district of the city of Chasiv Yar in eastern Ukraine.
Russian troops have advanced in several locations around the city, which has been the target of Russian bombardment for several months, according to Deep State, a Ukrainian military news outlet with close ties to the army.
Open source investigators tracking front line developments claimed that Russian made gains to the south around the city of Toretsk, with fighting taking place in the nearby settlements of Zalizhne and Pivnichne.
Russian forces also captured the village of Sotnytsia Kozachok in the northern Kharkiv region, according to Deep State.
Sir Keir Starmer spoke to Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday during his first day as prime minister, reassuring him of his “unwavering commitment” to supplying Ukraine with defensive support.
Starmer has said he already discussed the war in Ukraine with world leaders ahead of the NATO summit in Washington next week.
“I’ve already had a number of international calls, as you will know, and as you would have expected, to establish the relations across with other countries to have really important discussions about Ukraine and other pressing issues,” he said in speech at Downing Street on Saturday.
“Washington will be an opportunity for me to have further discussions with some of the leaders I’ve already spoken to and some that I’m due to speak to,” Starmer added.
The US will announce that more than $2.3bn in new security assistance will be offered to Ukraine, defense secretary Lloyd Austin said on Tuesday during a meeting with his Ukrainian counterpart, Rustem Umarov, at the Pentagon.
Emily Foster is a globe-trotting journalist based in the UK. Her articles offer readers a global perspective on international events, exploring complex geopolitical issues and providing a nuanced view of the world’s most pressing challenges.
