Russia claims Drone attacks by Ukraine against targets located far within its borders

Officials from Russia have stated that Ukrainian drones successfully hit two oil buildings located deep inside Russia on Tuesday. At the same time, a group of armed people, said to be against the Russian government and based in Ukraine, caused concern in a border area just before Russia’s presidential election.

The drones attack in eight parts of Russia shows that Kyiv is getting better with technology as the war goes on for three years. The attack across the border made President Putin’s claim that the war hasn’t affected Russia seem less believable. Despite this, he is likely to win another six-year term because he has gotten rid of all opposition.

The news about fighting at the border was unclear, and it was impossible to be sure about what was happening in Russia’s Kursk and Belgorod regions. Attacks have been happening on and off in the area since the war started. People have been making different claims about who is responsible for the attacks, and there has been a lot of false information and propaganda spread about it.

Russian volunteers who are fighting for Ukraine, according to Kyiv officials, say they have crossed the border. The Freedom of Russia Legion, the Russian Volunteer Corps, and the Siberian Battalion posted videos and statements on social media, saying they were in Russia. They said they wanted “Russia free from Putin’s control. ”

The videos couldn’t be checked by someone else to see if they were real.

Ukrainian fighters tried to reach the town of Tetkino near the border, said the governor of Kursk region in Russia, Roman Starovoit. He said Tetkino was being attacked with bombs.

A group tried to sneak in and cause damage. He said in a video message on Telegram that there was a shooting battle, but no progress was made.

The Russian Defense Ministry said the Tetkino attacks were stopped, but didn’t give any more information.

It also said that Ukrainian soldiers tried four times to go into the Belgorod area, but all the attacks were stopped by warplanes, guns, and missiles.

Andrii Yusov from Ukraine’s intelligence agency said that the military groups are made up of Russian citizens.

“He said they do their own thing without anyone telling them what to do in Russia. ”

In May, Russia said that many Ukrainian fighters went into a town on its border in the Belgorod region. They attacked and made people leave, but more than 70 of the attackers were killed or sent back by a operation to stop terrorism. Ukrainian officials say they are not connected to the group.

At the same time, a drone from Ukraine hit and started a fire at an oil refinery in the Nizhny Novgorod region, as reported by the governor, Gleb Nikitin. That area is about 775 kilometers (480 miles) from the border of Ukraine.

In another attack, a small flying robot was shot and destroyed in the area around Moscow. The mayor of Moscow, Sergei Sobyanin, said this. The drone was close to Zhukovsky Airport, one of Moscow’s four international airports, even though it was brought down far south of the city center.

Another flying robot crashed into a place where they store oil in Oryol, which is 116 kilometres away from Ukraine.

Ukrainian leader Volodymyr Zelenskyy said last year that his country had made a weapon that can reach a target 700 kilometres (400 miles) away, which seems to be talking about drones.

The Russian military said they stopped Ukrainian drones over several areas in Russia on Tuesday.

Kyiv has been carrying out more aggressive attacks across a 1,500-kilometre (930-mile) front line in eastern and southern Ukraine. It has also been using more sea drones in the Black Sea, saying it has sunk Russian warships.

Kyiv’s soldiers want more weapons and help from Western countries. But right now, they’re having a tough time fighting against the larger and better-equipped Russian army in some parts of Ukraine.

Zelenskyy said that Russian progress has stopped and the fighting is now in a much better position than it was three months ago.

“We had some problems because we didn’t have enough weapons and the sky was full of Russian drones,” Zelenskyy said in an interview with France’s BFM TV and Le Monde published late Monday on the Ukrainian presidential website.

On Tuesday, a big Russian military plane called Il-76 crashed while trying to take off from an air base in western Russia. There were 15 people on board. The statement didn’t say if anyone lived through it. The ministry thinks that a fire in the engine when the plane was taking off probably caused the crash.