Flight restrictions were imposed at five airports in Russia after Ukraine unleashed an attack reportedly with more than 200 drones and ballistic missiles.
Alexander Bogomaz, the governor of the Bryansk region in western Russia, said Ukraine had launched a major missile attack but did not say which missiles had been used.
Flight restrictions were imposed at airports in Kazan, Saratov, Penza, Ulyanovsk and Nizhnekamsk, Russia’s aviation watchdog said.
Nizhnekamsk, in Russia’s republic of Tatarstan, is home to the major Taneco refinery. The Shot Telegram channel said attack sirens were sounded at the refinery.
It claimed Russia had downed more than 200 Ukrainian drones and five US-made ATACMS ballistic missiles.
“The enemy has organised a massive combined strike on the territory of the Russian regions,” the Two Majors war blogger said.
Factories were damaged in at least three cities, officials and media said.
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.
Schools had shifted to remote learning, he said.
Ukraine attacked the same region last week and claimed to have struck an oil depot serving an airbase for Russian nuclear bomber planes, sparking a state of emergency being imposed, and causing a huge fire that took five days to put out.
The independent Astra news outlet reported a fire at an industrial site in the city of Kazan, east of Moscow, as a result of a drone attack.
The string of claims could not be independently verified.
Ukrainian air defence and mobile drone hunter groups shot down 58 out of 80 drones launched by Russia in overnight attacks on 11 regions on Tuesday, the air force said.
It said 21 drones disappeared from radars in reference to Kyiv using electronic warfare to redirect them.
Ukraine first fired US-supplied ATACMS and British Storm Shadow missiles into Russia last autumn, prompting Moscow to respond by launching a new intermediate-range hypersonic ballistic missile known as “Oreshnik”, or Hazel Tree, at Ukraine.
Joe Biden gave the go-ahead for Kyiv to fire missiles from the West into Russia after thousands of North Korean troops were sent to join Vladimir Putin’s war effort.
The Kremlin has said Russia will retaliate, including potentially with more Oreshnik launches, every time Ukraine strikes it with West-supplied missiles.
President-elect Donald Trump has pushed for a ceasefire and negotiations to end the war quickly, leaving Washington’s long-term support for Ukraine in question.
Britain has led calls for backing for Kyiv to be maintained.
Putin’s 2022 invasion of Ukraine has left tens of thousands of dead, displaced millions and triggered the biggest crisis in relations between Moscow and the West since the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis.
ballistic missiles, drone attack, missile attack, western Russia, Nizhnekamsk, Russia, Russia, Ukraine, Moscow, Saratov region, Bryansk region, Saratov
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