KYIV  -  Ukraine said on Sunday it had targeted a crucial Russian explosives factory, located about 750 kilometres (470 miles) from the border, in an overnight drone attack.

Kyiv has repeatedly launched drone attacks deep into Russian territory, seeking to hit energy and military sites that it says key to supplying Moscow’s invading army.

A source in the SBU security services told AFP its drones had struck the Sverdlov explosives factory in Dzerzhinsk, just outside the Russian city of Nizhny Novgorod. Russian officials confirmed drones had targeted the area but said the attack had been foiled.

“Air defences and electronic warfare means repelled a drone attack on the territory of the Dzerzhinsk industrial zone,” Nizhny Novgorod regional governor Gleb Nikitin said on Telegram. “Four employees of the fire station, located on the territory of the industrial enterprise, received light shrapnel wounds,” he added. The United States and European Union have sanctioned the Sverdlov plant, one of Russia’s largest manufacturers of military explosives. Footage posted on Russian social media showed a large explosion in the area and small drones being downed by air defence systems. AFP could not immediately verify the footage. Kyiv did not say what damage, if any, the attack inflicted on the plant’s production capabilities. Moscow’s defence ministry said earlier it had downed 110 Ukrainian drones that had been fired at its territory overnight, the largest attempted aerial barrage by Ukraine in two weeks.