Russia fires 24 drones at Ukraine, 18 shot down: Ukrainian air force

AFP , Thursday 4 May 2023

Russia fired up to 24 attack drones against Ukraine overnight, 18 of which were shot down, Ukraine's air force said on Thursday, a day after Moscow accused Kyiv of a drone attack on the Kremlin.

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This grab from a handout footage posted on May 4, 2023 on the official Telegram account of Krasnodar Krai governor Veniamin Kondratyev shows firefighters battling a blaze at an oil refinery in the southern Krasnodar region s Ilsky settlement.AFP

 

"The invaders launched up to 24 Shahed-136/131 attack drones... The Air Force of Ukraine, in co-operation with other air defence units, shot down 18 attack drones," the air force said on Telegram.

Sergiy Popko, the head of the city of Kyiv's military administration, said that according to preliminary information "all enemy missiles and UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles) were destroyed over Kyiv by air defence forces".

Popko said it was the third day of attempted strikes on Kyiv in May.

"Our city has not experienced such intensity of strikes since the beginning of this year," Popko said.

He said that debris from the downed drones had fallen on different parts of Kyiv but there were no casualties.

Moscow on Wednesday said Ukraine had launched two drones against the Kremlin in an attempt to assassinate Russian President Vladimir Putin.

The Kremlin threatened a tough response.

Ukraine has denied any involvement and the country's Western allies have also cast doubt on the report.

Meanwhile, a drone attack in southern Russia caused a fire at an oil refinery, the state-run TASS news agency reported on Thursday.

The fire at the oil refinery's reservoir, in the southern Krasnodar region's Ilsky settlement, started after an attack by "an unidentified drone", an emergency services official told TASS.

Krasnodar Governor Veniamin Kondratyev said the refinery fire had been localised to a 400-square-metre (4,300-square-foot) area and was quickly extinguished by emergency services.

In the nearby village Volna, a similar blaze at an oil reservoir engulfed 1,200 square metres, with officials blaming a drone crash.

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