As Russians go to the polls on the last day of a presidential vote that will likely extend Vladimir Putin’s authority for another six years, Ukraine has unleashed a fresh round of drone assaults.
Russian military officials said that 35 Ukrainian drones were shot down overnight, with four of those falling in the Moscow region alone. No deaths or damage were recorded as a fifth drone was subsequently destroyed on Sunday morning, according to Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, near the capital’s Domodedovo airport.
The Yaroslavl area to the northeast of Moscow and the Kaluga region to the south of the Russian capital were the targets of two more drone strikes.
Over the southern Krasnodar region and the border districts of Belgorod, Kursk, and Rostov, further Ukrainian drones were shot down. Firefighters in the Krasnodar area put out a blaze that started when a drone crashed into a refinery. An employee suffered a heart attack escaping the fire. Ukrainian drone assaults have mainly targeted oil ports and refineries.
Putin blamed Ukraine for trying to intimidate locals and sabotage Russia’s presidential election, and these actions came after a string of similar raids and other assaults in the previous several days. On Sunday, the Odesa region was the site of 14 Russian drones being shot down, according to the Ukrainian military. This comes after at least 21 people were killed and several homes were destroyed in Friday’s Russian ballistic missile attack on the port city in the south.
According to Britain’s defense ministry, Defense Secretary Grant Shapps canceled his trip to Odesa earlier this month due to a missile threat from Russia. British intelligence had told Shapps that Russia had learned of his vacation intentions, according to the news reports, which visited Kyiv on March 7.
Additionally, in the districts of Kharkiv and Donetsk, Russian forces fired five S-300 anti-aircraft guided missiles, while in the Chernihiv region, they fired two X-59 guided missiles.
