Ukraine Keeps Pounding Russia's Kursk Region with Drones, Russian Officials Say

Ukrainian tanks of the 28th Separate Mechanized Brigade take part in the training of fighters of the Shkval special battalion, created from ex-convicts, in an unspecified place in the Donetsk region on July 26, 2024, amid the Russian invasion of Ukraine. (Photo by Anatolii STEPANOV / AFP)

Kyiv launched more than two dozen drones on the Russian region of Kursk in several waves of attacks that started Saturday night and damaged an oil depot, Russian officials said on Monday.
Nineteen drones launched from Ukraine were destroyed by Russia's air defense systems overnight, Russia's defense ministry said on the Telegram messaging app.
That follows 19 drones that Andrei Smirnov, Kursk's governor, said defense systems destroyed over the region on Sunday.
Neither Smirnov nor the Russian defense ministry said how many drones in total Ukraine had launched, reported Reuters.
Firefighters were still trying to put out an oil depot fire in the region, sparked by Ukraine's drone attack on Saturday night, Smirnov said.
He said the attacks caused minor damage to several residential buildings. Russian officials rarely disclose the full extent of damage inflicted by Ukrainian attacks.
The Russian defense ministry said that in total, its air defense systems destroyed 39 drones that Ukraine launched targeting Russia's territory overnight.
Nine drones were destroyed over the Belgorod region, five over the Bryansk region, and three each over the Voronezh and Leningrad regions, all in Russia's west.
The ministry did not list the Oryol region, where according to the governor of the southwestern Russian region, a power plant was damaged in a Ukraine-launched drone attack overnight.
Ukraine has been systematically targeting Russian transport, energy and military infrastructure to disrupt the Kremlin's economy and its ability to fund the war, which Russia launched with a full-scale invasion on its smaller neighbor in 2022.
Kyiv also says the drone attacks are in response to Russia's continued bombing of Ukraine.