Kiev, Ukraine — Russian shelling of Ukraine’s Kherson region killed two people, local officials said, as the two countries exchanged drone strikes overnight Saturday.
Two others were wounded in the attack near the regional capital, said Oleksandr Prokudin, governor of the partially occupied Kherson region.
In Russia’s southwestern Rostov region, an oil depot in the Tsimlyansky district, deep in the region, was set on fire in the early hours of Saturday following a Ukrainian drone strike – the latest long-range attack by Kiev’s forces on a border region.
Ukraine has in recent months intensified airstrikes on Russian soil, targeting refineries and oil terminals in an attempt to slow the Kremlin’s war machine. Moscow’s army is pressing hard along the front line in eastern Ukraine, where shortages of troops and ammunition in the third year of the war have made defenders vulnerable.
Rostov regional governor Vasily Golubev said the drone strike had caused a fire spanning 200 square meters (2,100 square feet), but there were no injuries. About five hours after he reported the fire on Telegram, Golubev said the fire had been extinguished.
In addition to the interception of two drones over the Rostov region, overnight Russian air defense systems destroyed two drones over the country’s western Kursk and Belgorod regions, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Saturday.
Ukraine’s air defenses, meanwhile, intercepted four of the five drones launched by Russia overnight, the Ukrainian air force said Saturday morning. Mykola Oleschuk, commander of Ukraine’s air force, said the fifth drone left Ukrainian airspace in the direction of Belarus.
In other developments, Vadym Filashkin, the Ukrainian governor of the partially occupied eastern Donetsk region, said Saturday that Russian attacks on Friday had killed six people and wounded another 22.
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