Today, the Ukrainian army continued its incursion into the Russian Kursk region and during the night carried out a huge number of drone attacks on other Russian regions, including Lipetsk, almost 300 kilometers from the border, where a fire broke out in a military base.
The governor of the Lipetsk region, Igor Artamonov, declared a state of emergency due to a "huge attack" by Ukrainian drones in which six people were wounded and the power plant was damaged.
After first urging citizens to ignore calls on social media to leave Lipetsk, claiming it was being "spread by the enemy to spread panic", Artamonov eventually ordered the evacuation of four villages.
Russian agencies Tass and Ria Novosti, citing regional authorities, reported that a fire had broken out at an air base in the Lipetsk region, without specifying the cause.
The Russian Ministry of Defense reported that Russian forces shot down 75 Ukrainian drones overnight - 26 in the Belgorod region, 19 in the Lipetsk region, seven in the Kursk region, five in the Bryansk region, four in the Voronezh region, one in Oryol, five on the annexed Crimean peninsula. and eight above the Black Sea.
"In addition, five unmanned ships headed for the Crimean peninsula were destroyed" in the Black Sea, the Ministry added in a statement.
Since Tuesday, Ukraine has launched a surprise offensive on the Russian border region of Kursk.
More than a thousand Ukrainian soldiers with a dozen tanks and twenty armored vehicles entered the area on Tuesday, according to the Russian General Staff, which said it did everything to repel them.
However, it seems that this contingent took the field by surprising the Russian forces, and Kiev says almost nothing about this operation.
"Russia has brought war to our country and it should feel its consequences," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky told reporters last night without directly mentioning the invasion.
His adviser, Mihajlo Podoljak, also confirmed that the sudden offensive was a consequence of Russian "aggression" in Ukraine, but did not clearly attribute the incursion to Ukrainian forces.
"Now a large part of the international community considers Russia a legitimate target for operations of any type by any military," he added.
Several Western countries have forbidden Ukraine to use the weapons they provide for attacks on Russian territory.
Podoljak said on Ukrainian television that in order to get something from Moscow at the "negotiating table", the conflict should not follow the "scenario" set by the Russians.
The USA, the main country that supports Ukraine, reiterated yesterday that it firmly supports Ukraine's efforts to defend itself against Russian aggression, without commenting on the situation in Russia.
According to the US-based Institute for the Study of War (ISW), Ukrainian troops have penetrated up to 35 kilometers inside Russian territory.
According to several analysts, Ukrainian soldiers reached Suja, a Russian town with about 5.500 inhabitants ten kilometers from the border, where there is a gas distribution center from which other European countries are supplied via Ukraine.
Residents evacuated from that city talk about the difficult situation, according to the Russian service that takes care of them.
On Wednesday, Russian President Vladimir Putin, visibly angry, condemned the "large-scale provocation" on Russian television and said Ukrainian forces were indiscriminately targeting civilian buildings.
Bonus video:
