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Ukrainian drones strike deep into Russia at the weekend
Hanna, 12, and her family sit ride inside a van during an evacuation from Pokrovsk, Ukraine, December 21, 2024

UKRAINE brought the war into the heart of Russia on Saturday morning with drone attacks that local authorities said damaged residential buildings in the city of Kazan in the Tatarstan region, over 600 miles from the front line.

The press service of Tatarstan's governor, Rustam Minnikhanov, said that eight drones attacked the city. Six hit residential buildings, one hit an industrial facility and one was shot down over a river, the statement said.

A video posted on local Telegram news channel Astra shows a drone flying into the upper floors of a high-rise building.

Local authorities said there were no casualties. Flights were halted at Kazan’s airport and all mass gatherings cancelled over the weekend.

The attacks, which Ukraine didn’t acknowledge in keeping with its security policy, comes after Friday’s attack using US-supplied missiles on a town in Russia’s Kursk border region, which killed six people, including a child.

Moscow sent 113 drones into Ukraine on Friday night, Ukrainian officials said. According to Ukraine’s air force, 57 drones were shot down during the attacks. A further 56  were “lost,” likely having been electronically jammed.

The governor of Ukraine’s Kharkiv region, Oleh Syniehubov, said eight people were wounded on Friday night in drone attacks on the regional capital, also called Kharkiv.

In the city of Zaporizhzhia, four people were wounded when a nine-storey residential building was damaged by falling drone debris on Friday night, regional Governor Ivan Fedorov said.

Moscow’s troops also continue to slowly advance in eastern Ukraine. Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Saturday that its forces had taken control of the village of Kostiantynopolske in Ukraine’s Donetsk province, just six miles from the besieged city of Kurakhove, which they are trying to encircle.

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