Russia destroys three drones as Ukrainian shelling wounds six

MOSCOW: Russia said Saturday that it shot down two drones over its Belgorod region and one headed for Moscow, as it reported Ukrainian shelling wounded six people in a border town.

Russia and the Moscow-annexed Crimean peninsula have been hit by a wave of attacks in the past month, after Kyiv warned in July it aimed to “return” the conflict to Russian territory.

The Russian defence ministry said one drone was destroyed close to the border in Belgorod region at 09:00 (0600 GMT), while another was intercepted over the region at 14:15 (1115 GMT).

A separate drone headed for Moscow in the early hours of the morning was also thwarted, the defence ministry said. Moscow, which was rarely attacked during the early stages of the conflict, is now being targeted by almost daily drone strikes. “Tonight, air defence forces destroyed a drone on approach to Moscow in the Istrinskii district,” the capital’s mayor Sergei Sobyanin wrote on Telegram. “Preliminarily, there were no casualties or damage. Emergency services are working on the site,” he added.

The drone attacks came as the governor of Russia’s Belgorod region said Kyiv shelled the town of Urazovo, about 10 kilometres from the Ukrainian border, injuring six people.

Russian regions bordering Ukraine have regularly accused Kyiv’s armed forces of indiscriminate shelling and occasional cross-border incursions by Ukrainian-backed militants.

Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov accused Ukraine of firing “cluster munitions” in Saturday’s attack, and said residential buildings had been damaged. “As a result of the cluster munition strike, 6 civilians sustained shrapnel wounds,” he said in a social media update, after initially reporting four had been injured. “One victim is in extremely serious condition,” he wrote on Telegram.

Meanwhile, two people were killed and one wounded after Russian forces shelled a village near the town of Kupiansk in Ukraine’s northeastern Kharkiv region, hitting a cafe, officials said.Officials in Kupiansk, four miles from the frontline, had urged vulnerable residents living near the town to evacuate earlier this month as Russia stepped up attacks to recapture the area.

“According to the preliminary information of the medical staff, two people died in Podoly village as a result of the shelling, another one was wounded,” Kharkiv governor Oleg Synegubov said on social media. “The enemy hit a civilian target -- a cafe, where local residents were spending the day,” he added.

The Ukrainian prosecutors’ office published photos from the scene that appeared to show shards of debris and an upturned table scattered outside a building, as the blurred bodies of two people lay nearby.

“Law enforcement officers are taking priority measures to record the crime committed by the army of the aggressor country,” it said.

The Russian military has claimed over recent days that it is advancing near the area, which was recaptured by Ukraine last year but is now subject to a renewed offensive.

In a related development, Ukraine said Saturday that three of its air force pilots including a renowned fighter jet pilot with the call-sign “Juice” were killed in a mid-air collision on Friday. The crash marks a major upset for Kyiv, which has been looking to secure advanced F-16 jets to strengthen its Soviet-era air force and push ahead with its counteroffensive.

The crash took place in Ukraine’s northern Zhytomyr region and involved two L-39 combat training aircraft, it said, adding an investigation was underway. Air force spokesperson Yuriy Ignat said one of the pilots killed -- Andrii Pilshchykov -- who went by the call-sign “Juice”, was a young officer with “mega knowledge and mega talent”.