MOSCOW: Ukraine launched a major drone attack on Russia for the second day in a row, Moscow said Tuesday, reporting that it had intercepted 209 drones overnight and in the morning.
The attack is Kyiv’s second consecutive barrage on Russia as it steps up retaliatory strikes.
Most of the drones were shot down over the regions of Kursk, Nizhny Novgorod and Belgorod, Russia’s defense ministry said in a statement.
The strikes hit an unidentified industry enterprise in the Nizhny Novgorod region, Governor Gleb Nikitin said.
Russian authorities did not report any injuries or deaths on Tuesday.
On Monday, Ukraine launched 251 drones toward Russia, and two people died in a rocket strike on the city of Belgorod around 30 kilometers (19 miles) from the Ukrainian border.
“One thousand people in four settlements remain without electricity,” according to Belgorod’s governor Vyacheslav Gladkov, adding that repair works were ongoing after the barrage.
Kyiv is ramping up strikes on Russia’s energy and oil infrastructure, in what it sees as a legitimate response to Moscow’s daily attacks on Ukrainian cities, which have at times left millions without heating and power.
Ukraine said Russia had launched 154 drones and missiles overnight Monday-Tuesday, around half of which were intercepted.
An unmanned aircraft hit railway and energy infrastructure in Ukraine’s Poltava and Sumy regions, leaving more than 1,000 people without electricity.
The Russian army controls around one-fifth of Ukraine’s territory, including the Crimean peninsula annexed in 2014, and has been grinding forward on the battlefield, with both militaries suffering immense losses.