The Ukrainian Air Force said on Saturday it had shot down nine of 14 drones launched by Russia in southern and central Ukraine overnight from Friday to Saturday. “Ukraine destroyed nine enemy drones in the Dnipro, Odessa, Mykolaiv and Zhytomyr regions,” the Kiev Air Force said. Most of the Iranian-made Shahed drones targeted “energy infrastructure” in the central Dnipro region, where thousands are without power.
The main information:
- The Ukrainian Air Force said Saturday it had shot down nine of 14 drones launched by Russia in southern and central Ukraine.
- Russian police arrested at least twenty journalists on Saturday during a rally organized on Red Square by the wives of soldiers fighting in Ukraine.
- A fire hit a major refinery in the Volgograd region in southwest Russia on Saturday after a drone attack claimed by Ukraine.
- Ukraine’s bombing of a bakery in the occupied eastern city of Lysychansk has killed at least eight people.
Families without water supply
The power outages mainly affected Kryvyi Rig, the hometown of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky. The governor of the Dnipro region, Serguii Lysak, said that 15,000 residents of Kryvyi Rig were without electricity after the drone attack. Fires caused by the strikes affected “two boiler rooms” in the city and “some families find themselves without a water supply”, he added, indicating that “no deaths or injuries” had been reported, but that two homes had been damaged.
The head of the city’s military administration, Oleksandr Vilkul, indicated for his part that energy companies would “introduce emergency cut-off times” in the city. The Kryvyï Rig high-speed tram will stop operating and part of some hospitals will use generators. Ukraine’s Energy Ministry said it was working to restore critical infrastructure. Since its invasion of Ukraine began almost two years ago, Russia has targeted the country’s energy infrastructure, leaving thousands without heat during an intense campaign last year.
At least 8 dead in Ukrainian bombing in occupied eastern Ukraine
A Ukrainian bombing that hit a bakery in the occupied eastern city of Lysychansk left at least eight dead and 10 injured, Russian occupation authorities said. Lysychansk, in the Lugansk region, fell to Russian forces after a brutal battle at the start of Moscow’s 2022 offensive. Ukrainian forces hit a building in which a busy bakery was located, according to pro-Russian authorities and the toll is expected to rise.
“According to current data, the result of the bombing of a bakery in Lysychansk is eight dead and 10 injured with varying degrees of severity,” Natalia Pashchenko, Minister of Health of the Lugansk region authorities, said on Telegram , installed by Moscow. She added that rescuers had already spotted 10 people under the rubble. “There are deaths among them too,” according to Ms. Pashchenko. Russia’s Emergency Situations Ministry earlier said rescue operations were continuing. Leonid Pasechnik, the Russian-installed governor of Lugansk, accused Kiev forces of targeting the bakery, which he said is known for having fresh bread on weekends.
Fire at refinery after drone attack
A fire hit a major refinery in the Volgograd region in southwest Russia on Saturday, a local official said, after a drone attack claimed by Ukraine. “Tonight, anti-aircraft defense and electronic jamming means repelled a drone attack in the Volgograd region, in the Kalachiovsky and Zakanalye districts,” Governor Andrei Botcharov said on Telegram. “Following the fall of a downed drone, a fire broke out in the Volgograd refinery,” he added. Early in the morning, the emergency services, cited by the TASS agency, affirmed that the fire had been extinguished. According to the governor, this attack did not cause any casualties.
The fire at the refinery in Volgograd was the “result of a successful drone attack by the SBU”, the Ukrainian security services, a Ukrainian security source told AFP. Owned by the giant Lukoil, the refinery claims on its website to be “the largest producer of petroleum products in the Southern Federal District”, which brings together eight regions in southwest Russia. The factory is located in the south of the city of Volgograd. Local media V1 published images presented as those of the attack, showing an explosion in the night. Local residents, contacted by this media, claimed to have heard two explosions.
In a statement, the Russian army announced that air defense had shot down or intercepted with jamming systems four drones in the Belgorod region, two others in the Volgograd region and another in the Rostov-on-Don region. . Since the start of the offensive against kyiv in February 2022, Russian territory has been regularly targeted by strikes and drone attacks attributed to kyiv.
Journalists arrested in Moscow during a demonstration by soldiers’ wives
Russian police arrested at least twenty journalists on Saturday during a rally organized on Red Square by wives of soldiers fighting in Ukraine who are demanding the return of their husbands from the front. An AFP videographer arrested during this demonstration indicated that around 20 to 25 journalists, including foreign reporters, were with him in a police van en route to a police station in the capital. For several weeks, wives of soldiers mobilized to fight in Ukraine have regularly found themselves under the walls of the Kremlin, as a sign of protest.
The anger of relatives of the reservists mobilized on the orders of Vladimir Putin in September 2022 is a sensitive subject for the authorities, who have until now been careful not to repress this emerging rebellious movement. Previously, during other demonstrations of this type in Moscow, the police had refrained from intervening, although any start of protest is usually severely repressed in Russia. The activism of mobilized women has been largely ignored by Russian state media, while the Kremlin is keen to display an image of unity around Vladimir Putin before his inevitable re-election in the March 2024 presidential election. According to Vladimir Putin , 244,000 mobilized troops are currently fighting in Ukraine out of a total force of 617,000 men.