On Tuesday morning, there should have been a drone attack on an air base in the Kursk region on the border with Ukraine, according to the governor of the region, Roman Starovoyt. – As a result of the drone attack in the area of Kursk airport, an oil tank caught fire. No one has been killed or injured, says Governor Roman Starovojt in a message on social media early Tuesday morning. He has not said anything about where the drone came from. So far, no media has been able to verify the messages. On Monday, Russian authorities accused Ukraine of being behind drone attacks against two Russian military bases several miles inside Russia, in the Ryazan region and the Saratov region, respectively. Indeed Verifiable has geolocated the fire to an area where several fuel tanks are located in a depot at the air base. Attacks with “Soviet drones” in Russia This is also confirmed by a Ukrainian official to The New York Times, according to Reuters. Ukrainian authorities have not confirmed this publicly. The drones are said to have taken off from Ukrainian territory and at least two aircraft are said to have been destroyed at one of the bases, while several others were damaged, according to the newspaper. According to the Russian Defense Ministry, the airport in Engels in the Saratov region, 1,200 kilometers east of Kyiv in Ukraine, was attacked with a Soviet-made drone. Around the same time, a petrol tanker exploded on a runway at Djagilevo airport in the Ryazan region, 170 kilometers south of Moscow. Three soldiers lost their lives, and four were injured. The drones are said to have been shot down by Russian air defenses, and it is said to be wreckage that has caused damage to aircraft and people. Verified by: Actually verifiable Two surveillance videos from apartment blocks in the area confirm that an explosion has occurred, but we cannot verify one hundred percent that it actually occurred at the airport. – Needlestick towards Russia Professor Sven G. Holtsmark at the Department of Defense Studies says the Ukrainians may have achieved some form of strategic initiative. – How likely is it that Ukrainian forces are behind it? Professor Sven G. Holtsmark at the Department of Defense Studies. Photo: IFS – In the starting point, it is natural to think that Ukraine is behind when military targets in the western part of Russia in particular are hit by incidents that may be due to one or another form of Ukrainian action, says Holtsmark. – It is unlikely that there will be more than single attacks, “needle-pricks”. It remains to be seen to what extent the Ukrainians will succeed in actually destroying significant Russian targets, says Holtsmark. He believes that the most important significance of the attacks in Russia lies in the Russian response. – Yesterday it seems that the Russians responded with another massive missile attack on Ukraine. The Ukrainian attacks and the Russian missile attack are indirectly linked. If this is the case, the Ukrainians have achieved some form of strategic initiative. Russia necessarily has a limited arsenal of missiles, and by provoking their use, Ukraine has reduced Russia’s room for action, says Holtsmark. – Unlikely Holtsmark says it sounds unlikely that wreckage from a drone should have damaged the planes on the ground. – Russia adds that the drones were shot down, but that fragments from the drones damaged two planes on the ground, and they do not specify where. This sounds very implausible, of course – that such fragments should land exactly on a plane at an airport, it is as likely as winning the lottery, says Holtsmark. He says it is important to maintain that under international law there is nothing to prevent Ukraine from attacking Russian military targets and strategic infrastructure on Russian territory. – It is Russia that is the aggressor, and Ukraine has the right to defend itself within the part of the international law of war that applies to the warfare itself. Russia, on the other hand, has violated the very prohibition of force in the UN treaty, and is therefore waging a war that is itself illegal. The drones are said to have been shot down by Russian air defense The New York Times writes that the Ukrainian authorities do not confirm directly and clearly that they are behind the attack, but that Zelenskyj’s adviser Sergiy Leshchenko is said to have made a cryptic message that “it who flies into a place, also returns”. Hours after the attacks on Monday, Russia is said to have sent a number of missiles at targets around Ukraine. Ukrainian authorities say most of the missiles were shot down.
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Military airports in Russia hit by explosions – news Urix – Foreign news and documentaries
