Russia, Ukraine exchange drone, missile attacks

Kyiv, Ukraine — Kyiv and Moscow staged dozens of drone and missile attacks overnight, officials said Friday, leaving several wounded in Ukraine and damaging a fuel reservoir site in a Russian border region.

The two sides have stepped up cross-border aerial assaults in recent weeks, with Kyiv targeting Russian energy facilities and Moscow launching retaliatory barrages.

Russia said it had downed 87 Ukrainian drones, of which 70 had targeted the southern Rostov region that houses the headquarters of its military operation against Kyiv.

The defense ministry said 70 drones were downed over Rostov, six each over Kursk and Voronezh, and two each over Volgograd and the Belgorod region bordering Ukraine.

The attacks sparked power cuts in several areas of the Rostov region, its governor Vasily Golubev said on social media.

In Voronezh, which borders Ukraine, a fuel reservoir was slightly damaged by falling debris, its regional governor Aleksander Gusev said.

Kyiv meanwhile said Ukrainian air defense systems had downed 24 out of 31 Russian drones and missiles fired overnight.

Six people were wounded in an attack on the front-line town of Selydove in the war-battered Donetsk region, its governor said.

Three people were wounded in a drone attack in the eastern Sumy region and several homes were damaged in the neighboring Kharkiv region.
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