Ukrainian forces have hit a major bomb storage site and airfield deep in the heart of Russia, with ammunition stocks exploding for hours in a massive kamikaze drone strike.
According to reports, hundreds of locals were evacuated from four settlements due to,,,,the munition explosions from the devastating precision attack in Lipetsk, located more than 300km away from the Ukro-Russian border.
‘The entire airfield is on fire, look at what is going on,’ said one observer at the Syrskoye base, which was also evacuated.
Reports further revealed that nine civilian casualties were reported as power cuts resulting from the strikes and curbs on civilian movements at the four powerful explosions near the village of Oktyabrskoye. The scale of the casualties was unclear, but there were said to be significant losses.
This came as Ukraine separately staged a missile strike on a column of Russian forces in the Rylsky district of the Kursk region as Vladimir Putin’s army sought to reverse a humiliating incursion by Kyiv onto his territory.
The highway was completely blocked, with a strong fire and frequent detonations of ammunition.
However, both sides appeared to be throwing reinforcements into the fighting in the Kursk region, which saw Russians wrong-footed earlier this week after a sudden Ukrainian incursion into their territory.
Footage also showed the so-called Wild Division of Donbas, known as international brigade Pyatnashka, entering the Kursk theatre to back efforts to prevent Ukraine grabbing more Russian territory
The highway was completely blocked, with a strong fire and frequent detonations of ammunition.
However, both sides appeared to be throwing reinforcements into the fighting in the Kursk region, which saw Russians wrong-footed earlier this week after a sudden Ukrainian incursion into their territory.
Footage also showed the so-called Wild Division of Donbas, known as international brigade Pyatnashka, entering the Kursk theatre to back efforts to prevent Ukraine grabbing more Russian territory.
Russia unleashed major firepower in an attempt to stop the Ukrainian forces advancing – even bombing its own village of Darino from Su-34 warplanes with FAB-500 aerial bombs at one point.
A huge explosion is seen on video in the village reportedly occupied by Ukrainian forces.
Yet it was far from clear that Russian residents of Darino village had all been evacuated.
Separate footage showed the Russians striking a Ukrainian tank and an armoured vehicle with Lancet barrage munitions in Kursk region.
There was undisguised fury from residents of the district around border town Sudzha who made a video appeal to Putin angrily attacking his military chief of staff Valery Gerasimov for ‘lying’ in claiming that the Ukrainian advance had been halted.
‘Foreign troops with NATO equipment entered our land,’ they complained, upset that they are facing the same foreign occupation that Putin has inflicted on large regions of Ukraine.