The Russian military has repelled several large-scale Ukrainian drone raids, shooting down 114 UAVs overnight and intercepting six naval drones in the Black Sea, the Defense Ministry in Moscow has said.
Russian air defense units prevented an “attempt by the Kiev regime to carry out a terrorist attack using unmanned boats and airplane-type UAVs on Russian infrastructure,” the military said in a brief statement on Friday.
At least 70 drones were intercepted over the territory of Crimea, while the Black Sea fleet tracked down and destroyed six unmanned surface vehicles.
Another 43 drones were downed over Krasnodar Region, while one UAV was intercepted in Volgograd Region, the military added.
“During the night, the civilian infrastructure of our region came under a massive attack by the criminal Kiev regime,” Krasnodar Region governor Veniamin Kondratyev wrote on Telegram on Friday.
In the city of Krasnodar, a boiler facility near the Yuzhny bus terminal was damaged. One worker was killed in the attack, and several more were injured, Kondratyev said.
Elsewhere in the city, UAVs damaged administrative buildings on the territory of an oil refinery, according to the governor.
On Friday morning, the Defense Ministry reported that air defenses had intercepted another three drones in Russia’s Bryansk Region, which borders Ukraine.
The Ukrainian military has been routinely launching UAV attacks on Russian border regions since the start of the conflict in February 2022, with many raids targeting critical infrastructure and residential areas. Kiev’s attempts to damage Russian oil refineries and storage facilities using long-range kamikaze drones have intensified since January.
President Vladimir Putin has cited those attacks as the reason Russia decided to ramp up its strikes on Ukrainian energy infrastructure and military-industrial facilities. The Russian bombing began after the weather became warm enough for rolling blackouts not to pose a significant humanitarian threat, Putin stressed.
On Thursday, the Russian military confirmed that it had carried out another large-scale missile and drone attack on Ukrainian targets. According to Ukraine’s national electric company, Ukrenergo, its facilities were damaged in several parts of the country, including those located in Kiev Region, providing energy to the capital. The Russian barrage was the seventh of its kind since March 22, and will result in further restrictions on electricity consumption, it said.