Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Tuesday that its air defense systems destroyed nearly 200 Ukrainian drones in a second consecutive night of large-scale air attacks, with regional authorities reporting damage at several industrial sites.
In the Nizhny Novgorod region east of Moscow, Governor Gleb Nikitin said 30 drones were downed over an “industrial zone” in the town of Dzerzhinsk.
“Some debris landed on the premises of one enterprise, but no significant harm was caused to industrial infrastructure,” Nikitin wrote in a post on Telegram. A day earlier, he reported an attack involving 20 drones.
Ukraine’s General Staff had said on Monday that its drones struck the Y.M. Sverdlov explosives factory near Dzerzhinsk. A Ukrainian intelligence official and the Council of the European Union told Reuters that the factory is Russia’s only major producer of the high explosives RDX and HMX.
Meanwhile, in the southwestern Voronezh region, Governor Alexander Gusev said on Tuesday that debris from 17 Ukrainian drones downed over the region damaged the windows of a local heating plant.
Russia’s state nuclear power station operator Rosenergoatom claimed later in the day that a Ukrainian drone crashed into a cooling tower at the Novovoronezh Nuclear Power Plant, located near the city of Voronezh. Rosenergoatom said the collision did not cause any notable damage to the tower and that the facility continued to operate as usual.
In the neighboring Belgorod region, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said 1,000 residents were without power following the latest drone strikes.
On Monday afternoon, Gladkov had said two people, including a worker helping to restore power, were killed in a Ukrainian rocket attack.
Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Tuesday that 31 drones had been intercepted over the Belgorod region and 18 over the Voronezh region overnight. After reporting the downing of 184 Ukrainian drones, the ministry said its air defense systems shot down 34 additional drones throughout Tuesday morning.
This marks the second consecutive day of heavy Ukrainian drone attacks, with Russia having reported downing 251 drones on Monday night.
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