Ukraine has launched one of the largest missile and drone attacks on Russia in its nearly three-year war, striking multiple Russian military targets – with Moscow cliaming both US and UK long-range missiles had been involved.
Ukrainian forces launched a “massive attack” that hit multiple targets in Russia‘s Engels, Saratov, Kazan, Bryansk, and Tula.
Andriy Kovalenko, the head of Ukraine’s official Centre Against Disinformation, told Ukrainian TV that the strikes had targeted weapon production plants, oil refineries and warehouses.
The Ukrainian General Staff said it had struck as deep as 1,100 km (680 miles) inside Russia, targeting oil storage, refinery, chemical and ammunition plants in the Bryansk, Saratov, Tula and Tatarstan regions.
The drone attack struck a munitions storage facility holding guided bombs and missiles at the Engels airbase in Russia’s Saratov region as well as other targets, a source in the Security Service of Ukraine told Reuters.
The attack caused a large fire at the Aleksinsky chemical plant in the Tula region, a fire at the Saratovsky oil refinery and the Bryansk chemical plant was also hit, the source added.
Ukrainian officials said the Saratov attack, which stretched over several days, “reduced the capabilities of (Russia’s) strategic aviation.”
Roman Busargin, governor of the Saratov region about 450 miles southeast of Moscow, said the cities of Saratov and Engels, on opposite banks of the Volga River, had been subjected to a mass drone attack and there was damage to two industrial sites.
Ukraine attacked the same region last week and claimed to have struck an oil depot serving the Engels airbase for Russian warplanes, causing a huge fire that took five days to put out.
Flight restrictions were imposed at airports in Kazan, Saratov, Penza, Ulyanovsk and Nizhnekamsk, Russia’s aviation watchdog said.
Moscow said Ukraine had fired six US-made ATACMS ballistic missiles, six UK-made Storm Shadow cruise missiles and at least 146 drones into Russia. Officials vowed the attack would not go unanswered.
Russia’s defence ministry claimed it had shot down all of the Western missiles fired by Ukraine at the Bryansk region, as well as 146 drones outside the war zone. It said two more Storm Shadows had been shot down over the Black Sea.
“The actions of the Kyiv regime, supported by its Western curators, will not go unanswered,” the defence ministry said.
Russia has repeatedly threatened Ukraine and the West with retaliation for the use of Western-supplied longer-range weapons to strike Russian soil.
It comes as Russia said it had detected a shift from US President-elect Donald Trump and his team towards recognising the “realities” on the ground in Ukraine.
The Kremlin said it is open to a meeting between President Vladimir Putin and Trump, which the Republican said on Monday would take place “very quickly”.
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Tuesday that Moscow was ready to study Trump’s ideas for ending the conflict in Ukraine once he takes office on 20 January.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky, meanwhile, met with French premier Emmanuel Macron about the possibility of Western troops deploying in Ukraine to safeguard any peace deal.
The meeting came before an official visit to Kyiv on Tuesday by German Defense Minister Boris Pistorius. He arrived in Kyiv on an unannounced visit following a meeting in Warsaw on Monday with his counterparts from France, the UK, Italy and Poland.
Mr Zelensky said that Ukraine needs security guarantees to bolster any peace agreement — an issue he said late Monday that he discussed with the French leader.
“As one of these guarantees, we discussed the French initiative to deploy military contingents in Ukraine,” Zelensky said. “We considered practical steps for its implementation, possible expansion and involvement of other countries in this process.”
Reuters and The Associated Press contributed to this report
