MOSCOW   -   An overnight Ukrainian drone attack set a Russian munitions depot ablaze the Voronezh region, near the two countries’ shared border, Russian and Ukrainian officials said Sunday. “Several drones were detected and destroyed overnight by air defence systems above the Voronezh region,” regional governor Alexander Gusev wrote on Telegram.

“Their falling debris set off a fire in a depot” in the Podgorensky district, about 80 kilometres (50 miles) from the Ukrainian borderm.  “Explosives began to detonate”, Gusev said, adding that there were no indications anybody had been hurt.

Rescue teams were at the scene and Gusev said local people living near the depot were being evacuated. A Ukrainian defence source told AFP that its drones hit the munitions factory in an overnight attack. “The enemy stored surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles, shells for tanks and artillery and boxes of ammunition” at the site, which was hit by drones resulting in a “powerful” explosion, the source said. Russia and Ukraine have used drones, including large explosive devices with a range of hundreds of kilometres (miles), extensively since Russia launched its military offensive in February 2022.

Ukraine has stepped up its attacks on Russian territory this year, targeting both energy sites it says supply the Russian army and towns and villages just across the border.

Russia says captured another village in east Ukraine

Russia on Sunday said its forces had captured another village in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk region, the latest modest territorial gain for its advancing forces. Russian troops had “liberated the village of Chigari” in the Donetsk region, the defence ministry said in a daily briefing posted on social media.

On Saturday, Moscow said its forces had taken control of another small village in the same region, where Kyiv says the fiercest fighting across the entire front line is taking place. Russia has made a string of battlefield advances since the start of the year, beginning with the capture of industrial hub Avdiivka in February. But its progress has been grinding as the conflict looks locked in an attritional phase, with neither side able to punch a decisive breakthrough and both saying they are inflicting heavy casualties on the other.

Russian President Vladimir Putin on Friday repeated his demand for Ukraine to totally withdraw from the region, along with three others in the south and east of the country, if it wants peace.