Ukrainian drone hits industrial plant deep inside Russia

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(Reuters) -A Ukrainian drone hit an industrial facility overnight in Russia’s Volga river region of Chuvashia, some 1,300 km (800 miles) from the border with Ukraine, the regional governor said on Sunday.

The strike – one of the deepest yet into Russia by a Ukrainian drone – caused no casualties, Chuvashia Governor Oleg Nikolayev said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app.

Emergency services were at the scene at the Kombinat Burevestnik facility in the region’s capital, Cheboksaray, Nikolayev added. He provided no further details about the strike and the extent of any damage was unclear.

Russian authorities said earlier that air defence units had destroyed 88 Ukrainian drones overnight, with no injuries or other damage reported.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said 52 of the drones were destroyed over the border Belgorod region, while 13 were over the Lipetsk region and nine were over the Rostov region, both in Russia’s southwest.

The rest of the Ukrainian drones were downed over Russia’s Voronezh, Astrakhan, Krasnodar, Ryazan and Kursk regions, the ministry said.

Russia’s aviation watchdog Rosaviatsia said on Telegram that the airports of Astrakhan, Nizhny Novgorod and Kazan had been closed for several hours overnight to ensure air safety.

Unofficial Russian news Telegram channels said the Ukrainian attacks on Ryazan and Lipetsk had targeted local oil refineries.

Ukrainian Lieutenant Andriy Kovalenko, who heads the Center for Countering Disinformation, part of the National Security and Defense Council, said, without providing evidence or saying directly that Ukrainian drones were involved, the Novolipetsk Metallurgical Plant in Lipetsk was under attack.

Reuters could not independently verify the reports on what was targeted in the attacks.

Ukraine has said its attacks in the war, which Russia started three years ago, aim to destroy infrastructure key to Moscow’s war efforts and are in response to Russia’s continued bombing of Ukraine.

(Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by Kim Coghill, Christopher Cushing and Helen Popper)