kyiv hits Russian ammunition depot, Moscow advances in eastern Ukraine

Photo: Anatolii Stepanov Agence France-Presse A boy at Mykhailivska Square in kyiv, on September 7, 2024, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine

Agence France-Presse in Kiev

Published at 1:23 p.m.

• Europe

Kiev claimed responsibility for a strike on a Russian munitions depot in a border region on Saturday, with Moscow claiming the capture of a new village in eastern Ukraine.

Ukraine also said it had countered a “massive” drone attack on the capital, kyiv, overnight from Friday to Saturday.

It comes after a week of intense Russian bombing that killed at least 55 people in Poltava, in central Ukraine, and seven others in Lviv, in the west, where hundreds of people attended the funeral of a mother and her three daughters on Friday. Lviv, nearly a thousand kilometers from the front, is very close to Ukraine’s western border, which it shares with EU and NATO member states.

Russia also announces almost daily that it has destroyed Ukrainian drones launched against its territory.

A major fire causing an explosive detonation broke out on Saturday after a Ukrainian drone attack in the Russian region of Voronezh, which borders Ukraine, and an evacuation of residents was ordered, the local governor announced.

Russian air defense systems “detected and neutralized a drone” early in the morning, wrote Governor Alexander Gusev on Telegram.

While “no one was injured,” the fall of the drone caused a fire on the ground “which spread to explosive objects, and a detonation occurred,” he said, without giving further details on the nature of these objects.

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Evacuation of a Russian village

Due to the fire, “it was decided to evacuate the inhabitants of a village” to neighboring localities, according to the same source.

According to Russian Telegram channels, the fire broke out in an ammunition depot.

The Ukrainian security services (SBU) later claimed to have struck a munitions depot ammunition.

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A source in the SBU told AFP that kyiv was targeting “military airfields, ammunition depots and infrastructure” with the aim of “creating a demilitarized zone in the Russian regions bordering Ukraine.”

According to the Ukrainian air force, Russia launched 67 drone attacks against Ukraine during the night, and 58 of these aerial devices were shot down.

AFP journalists present in Kiev heard loud explosions during the night.

Drone attack on Kiev

“There is almost no night without Russian drone attacks on the territory of Ukraine. And today we had another massive night drone attack,” the Kiev municipality wrote on social media on Saturday.

The debris of a downed drone fell near the Ukrainian parliament in the city center.

Local officials on the front lines in eastern and southern Ukraine reported at least six deaths in Russian shelling on Saturday

Three people died in the industrial town of Kostyantynivka in the eastern Donetsk region. The regions of Dnipropetrovsk, Kharkiv and Kherson each deplore one death.

The Russian army claimed Saturday the capture of a new village in eastern Ukraine, where it continues its advance against outnumbered Ukrainian troops lacking firepower.

Capture of a Ukrainian village

Russian forces have “liberated the locality of Kalynove” in the Donetsk region, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a statement.

This village is located about 35 kilometers from Pokrovsk, a major logistics hub, which has been targeted for several weeks by Russian troops who are getting closer and closer. more.

Despite a surprise cross-border attack launched by kyiv on August 6 in the Kursk region, Moscow continues to steadily gain ground in Ukraine’s Donetsk region, which remains the epicentre of the fighting.

On Thursday, Russian President Vladimir Putin displayed his unwavering determination to conquer all of Donbass, the large industrial zone in eastern Ukraine, which includes the Donetsk region.

He also said he was willing to hold talks with kyiv based on those in spring 2022, if Ukraine so requests, whereas Moscow had previously said it ruled out any discussions because of the Ukrainian attack in the Kursk region.

On the diplomatic front, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky met Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni on Saturday, on the sidelines of an economic forum held on the shores of Italy's Lake Como.

Ms Meloni assured Ukraine of her unwavering support. “We must not fall into the trap of Russian propaganda” by believing that Ukraine's fate was sealed, she warned.

The day before, Mr Zelensky had participated in a meeting of Kiev's international supporters in Germany and met Chancellor Olaf Scholz, an opportunity to call for “more weapons”.