(Reuters) -Ukraine’s military said its forces launched fresh waves of strikes on southern Russia’s Kursk region on Monday, and said the strikes were targeting power substations in addition to earlier attacks on an oil depot.
“In particular, there have now been attacks on several of the Russian invaders’ power substations in Kursk region,” the General Staff said in a report on the Telegram messaging app.
“According to available information, the enemy’s air defence systems have been in operation and explosions have occurred around at least four stations.”
Power cuts, it said, had been noted in three districts.
Reuters could not independently verify the report.
Overnight, Russian officials said Kyiv had launched more than two dozen drones on Kursk in attacks that started on Saturday night and damaged an oil depot.
Nineteen drones launched from Ukraine were destroyed by Russia’s air defence systems overnight, Russia’s defence ministry said. That followed 19 drones that Andrei Smirnov, Kursk’s governor, said defence systems destroyed on Sunday.
Neither Smirnov nor the Russian defence ministry said how many drones in total Ukraine had launched. Smirnov said firefighters were still battling the blaze late on Sunday.
The attacks caused minor damage to residential buildings. Russian officials rarely disclose the full extent of damage inflicted by Ukrainian attacks.
The Russian defence ministry said that in total, its air defence systems destroyed 39 drones launched by Ukraine overnight. Nine drones were destroyed over Belgorod region, five over Bryansk region, and three each over the Voronezh and Leningrad regions, all in Russia’s west.
The ministry did not list the Oryol region, where according to the governor of the southwestern Russian region, a power plant was damaged in a Ukraine-launched drone attack overnight.
Ukraine has been targeting transport, energy and military infrastructure to disrupt the Kremlin’s ability to fund the war, which Russia launched with a full-scale invasion in 2022.
(Reporting by Lidia Kelly in Melbourne; Editing by Leslie Adler, Miral Fahmy and Ron Popeski)
