A Ukrainian drone struck a campus belonging to Russia’s National Guard in the Russian region of Chechnya on Sunday, as Kiev continued to retaliate following a major airstrike from Moscow. Footage on social media showed the drone flying low before exploding in the Chechen capital of Grozny, about 800 kilometers (500 miles) southeast of Ukraine’s front line. No casualties were reported.
Chechen leader Ramzan Kadyrov confirmed that the drone struck a site belonging to the Akhmat Grozny riot police battalion, and said two other drones were shot down by air defenses.
Kadyrov vowed revenge against the Ukrainian military and said he had ordered a missile attack on military facilities in Kharkiv in retaliation for the attack. The claim could not be independently verified. Russia’s Defense Ministry said Sunday it had shot down 15 Ukrainian drones overnight in the country’s Kursk and Belgorod regions, as well as in the Black Sea.
It did not mention the Grozny attack. An official of Ukraine’s security services also told the AP on Sunday that Ukrainian intelligence services had conducted a special operation to disrupt Russian logistics and fuel supply routes from Ukraine’s annexed Crimea to occupied Zaporizhia.
A security officer said that one locomotive and 40 tanker cars were destroyed in the operation on Saturday. A sabotage operation blew up the railway tracks while the train was moving before the HIMARS rocket launch system joined the attack.
“As a result, the main railway branch used to supply Russian forces was put out of service for an extended period,” said the official, who asked to remain anonymous to share sensitive information.
Following Kiev’s attack on Russia over the weekend, which set fire to a major oil terminal on Saturday, Moscow launched a mass bombardment of Ukraine on Friday. Russia fired 93 cruise and ballistic missiles and nearly 200 drones at its neighbor, damaging Ukraine’s energy infrastructure.
Russian troops are also slowly advancing in eastern Ukraine. The Institute for the Study of War, a Washington-based think tank, reported on Sunday that geospatial footage placed Russian troops inside the settlement of Kurakhov, which Moscow’s forces had besieged for weeks after being encircled on three sides.
The push compounds uncertainty over how the war might unfold next year, with US President-elect Donald Trump, who takes office next month, casting doubt on whether significant US military support for Kiev will continue. does
In an interview published in Time magazine on Thursday, Trump said he was against allowing Ukraine to use US-supplied weapons to strike targets on Russian soil.
Meanwhile, Russia launched 108 drones across Ukraine on Sunday night, according to the Ukrainian Air Force. 56 were shot down by air defense and 49 disappeared from radar after failing to reach their target. Three more drones have returned to Russia, officials said.
Governor Vitaly Kim said two people were injured and local infrastructure was damaged as a result of the attack in the Ukrainian city of Mykolaiv.
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