KYIV (AFP) — Kyiv’s bomb drones struck Russia’s oil refineries and border regions for the second day in a row on Wednesday, a day after missile strikes by Russia in Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky’s hometown of Kryvyi Rih left three dead and dozens wounded.

Dozens of drones were launched overnight, with the vast majority shot down, causing some damage but no victims, over the Ukrainian border regions of Belgorod, Bryansk, Kursk and Voronezh, according to regional governors.

One sparked a fire and wounded several people when it crashed into an oil refinery in the Ryazan region that lies some 200 kilometers southeast of Moscow.

A drone targeting another oil refinery in the Leningrad region near the second city of Saint Petersburg in northwest Russia was shot down, Alexander Drozdenko, the regional governor wrote on Telegram, adding there was no damage and no victims.

Drone barrage

More than 30 drones were shot down over the Voronezh region, with some light damage reported, regional governor Alexander Gussev wrote on Telegram.

Six drones were shot down over the Belgorod region, damaging several electrical lines and causing power outages, governor Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote on Telegram.

Eight drones were shot down over the Bryansk region and four were destroyed over the region of Kursk without reports of damage, the governors of those regions wrote on Telegram.

On Tuesday, Ukraine launched one of its most significant drone strikes on Russia so far in the two-year conflict. Two Russian energy sites, including one of the largest oil refineries some 800 kilometers from the border, were hit in the strikes, Russian officials said.

In Kryvyi Rih, rescuers evacuated wounded civilians from a burning multi-story residential building in a video published by Kyiv’s interior ministry.

“The Russian attack claimed the lives of three people,” the governor of the central Dnipropetrovsk region, Sergiy Lysak, said on Telegram.

At least 44 people were injured, eight of whom were in serious condition including three children, he said in a later post.

Incursion

The Russian strike came hours after a series of brazen cross-border raids by pro-Ukrainian militias were reportedly repelled.

Moscow said it had suppressed the attacks by the militias on its border regions using heavy artillery fire.

Groups of pro-Kyiv volunteer fighters, made up of Russians who oppose the Kremlin, said earlier that they had broken into the Kursk and Belgorod regions bordering Ukraine. 

Moscow said it had responded with rockets and “flame-throwing.”

“The village of Tyotkino, Kursk region, is completely under the control of Russian liberation forces,” said the Freedom of Russia legion, a militia that claims to be made up of Russian citizens fighting on behalf of Ukraine, in a post on Telegram.

It published a video purporting to show a handful of Russian troops fleeing across a snowy field.

Moscow denied that the fighters had made ground, and later said it had repelled all incursions from its territory.

In Russia’s Belgorod region, a member of the territorial defense was killed and 10 civilians wounded during the incursion, regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov said.

US aid

United States President Joe Biden announced on Tuesday a $300-million emergency weapons package to prop up Ukraine while Congress blocks further aid.

Biden said the stopgap shipment of missiles, shells and ammunition for Kyiv was “not nearly enough” and would run out in a couple of weeks, leaving Ukraine outgunned by Russian President Vladimir Putin’s invading forces.

“We must act before it literally is too late,” said Biden, 81, as he met Poland’s President Andrzej Duda and Prime Minister Donald Tusk at the White House.

The White House said the $300-million package, the first since December, was made possible by using money that the Pentagon has saved on other purchases, thus allowing Biden to bypass the Republican-controlled House of Representatives.

The president urged Republicans to stop blocking his larger, $60-billion aid package for Ukraine, which has been caught up in a bitter partisan fight ahead of a likely election rematch against Donald Trump in November. 

Kasparov’s call

Kremlin critic and chess legend Garry Kasparov on Tuesday called for a stronger Western response to Moscow’s aggression in Ukraine and said Russian dissident voices must be included in efforts to stand up to Putin.

Kasparov made the call on the sidelines of a gathering in Washington of the World Liberty Congress, a coalition of pro-democracy activists from 60 countries.

In an interview with Agence France-Presse, the former world chess champion who last week was put on Russia’s list of “extremists,” called for more military aid to Kyiv against a “terrorist regime that only understands force.”

He also urged Western countries to welcome anti-war Russians, including programmers and engineers involved in the making of drones and other weapons.

“Give them a chance to leave, give them a chance to switch to the other side,” Kasparov said. “I think this would sharply undermine Putin’s ability to wage war.”

Kasparov, widely viewed as one of the world’s greatest chess players, retired from chess in 2005 to focus on political activism and has lived in exile in New York for the past decade.