KYIV, Ukraine — Drones struck an oil facility near an air base in Russia on Tuesday, a local official said, just day after Ukraine used drones to hit two military bases deep inside the country, one of the most brazen attacks of the nine-month-old war.
Ukraine has not explicitly claimed responsibility for the attacks on either day, following its practice regarding military actions inside Russia. Russian officials did not directly accuse Ukraine in Tuesday’s attack, which hit an oil depot in the Kursk region, 80 miles from the border.
But the back-to-back drone strikes over two days were widely seen as another sign of Kyiv’s willingness to bring the war closer to Moscow.
Ukraine’s attacks far inside Russia’s border have altered the geography of the war, showing holes in Moscow’s air defense and signaling a determination to make Russia pay a heavier price for its unrelenting assault on Ukraine’s civilians.
After Monday’s strikes, Russia launched a volley of missiles at Ukraine that left half of the capital region of Kyiv without electricity and worsened rolling power outages across the country. Many Ukrainians have been without heat and water in frigid temperatures.
Monday’s attacks struck two military installations hundreds of miles inside the Russian border — the Engels airfield and the Dyagilevo military base — according to Russia’s Defense Ministry and a senior Ukrainian official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to convey sensitive information.
The drones were launched from Ukrainian territory, and in at least one of the strikes, Ukrainian special forces working near the base helped guide the drones to the target, the senior official said.
Yurii Ihnat, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force, said that the damage to the airfield at Engels appeared minimal. “But it is an alarming signal for them,” he said on Ukrainian national television.
Many of Ukraine’s Western allies have sought to avoid escalating the conflict and consistently declined to provide Kyiv with weapons that it could use to hit targets on Moscow’s territory. But Ukraine has shown that it is capable of developing its own arsenal. The Kremlin said that the attacks on Monday were carried out by Soviet-era jet drones.
Mick Ryan, a retired Australian Army officer, wrote on the Substack platform that the strikes on Monday had delivered “a psychological blow” to Russian people “who thought they were largely insulated from the effects of the war.” Dyagilevo lies about 100 miles from Moscow.
The Engels airfield has been a launching pad for bombers involved in missile attacks against Ukraine’s energy grid, Ukrainian officials say.
The Kursk airfield that was targeted on Tuesday is not thought to be as strategically significant, but since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February has been a base for fighter jets, according to Ukrainian intelligence reports.
Russian forces also have used positions in Kursk to launch attacks on the neighboring Sumy region of Ukraine with mortars, artillery and rocket launchers, said Dmytro Zhyvytsky, the head of the Sumy regional military administration.
On Monday, Mr. Zhyvytsky said, Russian forces near the border struck a monastery in Sumy with rockets, damaging the administrative building and other structures.
“Two cows were killed by shrapnel,” he said. “People survived.”
KYIV, Ukraine — Drones struck an oil facility near an air base in Russia on Tuesday, a local official said, just day after Ukraine used drones to hit two military bases deep inside the country, one of the most brazen attacks of the nine-month-old war.
Ukraine has not explicitly claimed responsibility for the attacks on either day, following its practice regarding military actions inside Russia. Russian officials did not directly accuse Ukraine in Tuesday’s attack, which hit an oil depot in the Kursk region, 80 miles from the border.
But the back-to-back drone strikes over two days were widely seen as another sign of Kyiv’s willingness to bring the war closer to Moscow.
Ukraine’s attacks far inside Russia’s border have altered the geography of the war, showing holes in Moscow’s air defense and signaling a determination to make Russia pay a heavier price for its unrelenting assault on Ukraine’s civilians.
After Monday’s strikes, Russia launched a volley of missiles at Ukraine that left half of the capital region of Kyiv without electricity and worsened rolling power outages across the country. Many Ukrainians have been without heat and water in frigid temperatures.
Monday’s attacks struck two military installations hundreds of miles inside the Russian border — the Engels airfield and the Dyagilevo military base — according to Russia’s Defense Ministry and a senior Ukrainian official, who spoke on the condition of anonymity to convey sensitive information.
The drones were launched from Ukrainian territory, and in at least one of the strikes, Ukrainian special forces working near the base helped guide the drones to the target, the senior official said.
Yurii Ihnat, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force, said that the damage to the airfield at Engels appeared minimal. “But it is an alarming signal for them,” he said on Ukrainian national television.
Many of Ukraine’s Western allies have sought to avoid escalating the conflict and consistently declined to provide Kyiv with weapons that it could use to hit targets on Moscow’s territory. But Ukraine has shown that it is capable of developing its own arsenal. The Kremlin said that the attacks on Monday were carried out by Soviet-era jet drones.
Mick Ryan, a retired Australian Army officer, wrote on the Substack platform that the strikes on Monday had delivered “a psychological blow” to Russian people “who thought they were largely insulated from the effects of the war.” Dyagilevo lies about 100 miles from Moscow.
The Engels airfield has been a launching pad for bombers involved in missile attacks against Ukraine’s energy grid, Ukrainian officials say.
The Kursk airfield that was targeted on Tuesday is not thought to be as strategically significant, but since Russia’s full-scale invasion in February has been a base for fighter jets, according to Ukrainian intelligence reports.
Russian forces also have used positions in Kursk to launch attacks on the neighboring Sumy region of Ukraine with mortars, artillery and rocket launchers, said Dmytro Zhyvytsky, the head of the Sumy regional military administration.
On Monday, Mr. Zhyvytsky said, Russian forces near the border struck a monastery in Sumy with rockets, damaging the administrative building and other structures.
“Two cows were killed by shrapnel,” he said. “People survived.”
