MOSCOW (Reuters) – A military airfield in Russia’s Novgorod region was targeted by a Ukrainian drone, resulting in a fire and damage to one warplane, according to a statement from Russia’s Defence Ministry on Saturday. The incident caused no injuries, and the fire was quickly extinguished. The Novgorod region is located northwest of Moscow, several hundreds of miles away from Russia’s border with Ukraine.
“As a result of the terrorist attack on the territory of the airfield, a fire broke out in the parking lot of aircraft, which was quickly eliminated by fire fighters. One aircraft was damaged,” stated the ministry.
In recent months, there has been an increase in drone air strikes deep inside Russia. On Friday, a drone was shot down by Russian air defences, causing it to crash into a building in central Moscow and disrupting air traffic at all civilian airports in the capital.
Earlier on Saturday, the Defence Ministry announced that Russia’s air defence forces had successfully intercepted and shot down a missile launched from Ukraine over the Crimean peninsula. Russia annexed Crimea from Ukraine in 2014, and the region has since experienced a surge in drone and missile attacks.
It is common for Ukraine to refrain from commenting on the perpetrators of attacks on Russian territory or Crimea. However, Ukrainian officials have expressed satisfaction with these incidents in public.
(Reporting by Reuters; Editing by Gareth Jones and Frances Kerry)
Credit: The Star : News Feed
