A woman in her 70s lost her life and two others were injured after debris from a downed Ukrainian drone fell in Russia’s Lipetsk region, regional governor Igor Artamonov said early Thursday.
The debris fell on a residential building in the district surrounding the regional capital, killing the woman and injuring two more, Artamonov said on the Telegram messaging app.
“Signals about falling debris are coming from various areas,” Artamonov added. “Rescue services and emergency agencies are working in an enhanced mode.”
10 Drones Destroyed
The Russian defence ministry said that it destroyed 10 Ukrainian drones overnight over the Lipetsk region and 69 in total over Russian territory and the Crimean Peninsula. The ministry reports only how many drones its forces destroy, not how many Ukraine launches.
Artamonov said in another post that an apartment building under construction in the city of Yelets in the Lipetsk region was damaged as result of an attack and that a small fire broke out at a nearby parking lot.
The full damage were not immediately known. There was no immediate comment from Ukraine about the attack.
Both sides deny targeting civilians in their strikes during the war that Russia launched against Ukraine more than three years ago. But thousands of civilians have died in the conflict, the vast majority of them Ukrainian.
Ukraine’s Attack
Ukraine has launched multiple air strikes into Lipetsk, a strategically important region with an air base that is the chief training centre for the Russian Aerospace Forces.
Kyiv has been attacking Russian airbases to reduce Moscow’s ability to use its warplanes to strike targets in Ukraine and hammer front lines with guided bombs and missiles. In August, the Ukrainian military said it had hit the Lipetsk airfield, damaging stockpiles of guided bombs and causing a series of explosions.
Five Injured In Ukraine
Meanwhile, five people were injured, including a 7-year-old boy and a 9-year-old girl, in a Russian attack on the southern Ukraine port of Odesa overnight, Ukrainian authorities said on Thursday.
A multi-storey residential building and other civilian infrastructure were damaged, regional governor Oleh Kiper said on the Telegram messaging app. Six apartments were completely destroyed, another 36 were partially damaged, he said.
“The children, who were poisoned by combustion products, were hospitalized,” Kiper said. The other three injured people, all adults, received medical aid on the site.
The full scale of the attack was not immediately known. There was no immediate comment from Russia about the attack.
Denial
Both sides deny targeting civilians in their strikes during the war that Russia launched against Ukraine more than three years ago. But thousands of civilians have died in the conflict, the vast majority of them Ukrainian.
The State Emergency Service of Ukraine posted on its Facebook page photos showing rescuers carrying children in the dark out of a multi-storey apartment building on fire and firefighters fighting the blaze.
The Service said that 50 people were evacuated from the building. The fire has been extinguished since, Kiper said.
(With inputs from Reuters)
