Ukrainian drone strike causes fires in Smolensk and oil depot blaze in Voronezh

A residential building in the western Russian city of Smolensk caught fire after a drone strike late on Monday as the Russian Defence Ministry said on Tuesday that the Armed Forces of Ukraine (AFU) had launched over 50 drones at targets across Russia overnight.

Smolensk Governor Vasily Anokhin said that air defence systems had intercepted 17 drones over the region through the night, with fires breaking out in several residential buildings as a result of falling debris but no injuries or serious damage to infrastructure reported.

Several Russian Telegram channels, as well as Andriy Kovalenko, the head of Ukraine’s Centre for Countering Disinformation, said that the attack had targeted the Smolensk Aviation Plant, a facility under Western sanctions for producing and modernising aircraft for the Russian military.

“Each strike on such a plant will undermine Russia’s ability to keep its aviation in combat-ready condition,” Kovalenko said.

In the Voronezh region to the south, Governor Alexander Gusev said that a downed Ukrainian drone had crashed into an oil depot in the town of Liski, causing a fire that emergency services would extinguish “as soon as it is safe to do so”. The facility had already been on fire for several days following a previous drone attack on Wednesday.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence said that in total its air defence systems had downed 55 Ukrainian drones launched at targets in western Russia overnight, including 22 over the Bryansk region, 12 over the Rostov region, 10 over the Smolensk region, six over the Voronezh region, four over the Saratov region and one over the Kursk region.

Airports in the cities of Kazan and Ulyanovsk in Russia’s Volga region temporarily halted flights on Tuesday morning due to the risk of drone strikes, the country’s Federal Air Transport Agency said.

Meanwhile, Ukraine’s Air Force said on Tuesday morning that Russia had launched 131 drones and four missiles at the country overnight, with air defences intercepting 72 of the drones and the remaining 59 failing to reach their target.