Ukraine presses on with offensive, strikes Russian airfield

KYIV, Ukraine (AFP) — Ukraine’s army said Friday its troops hit a Russian airfield in the Lipetsk region, some 280 kilometers from the border, in an overnight strike that destroyed ammunition warehouses.

“Last night, the Ukrainian Defense Forces attacked the Lipetsk airfield,” Ukraine’s General Staff said in a post on Telegram, adding it had struck “warehouses with guided aerial bombs and a number of other facilities.”

Early Friday, official Russian news agencies TASS and RIA Novosti reported a fire at a military airfield in the neighboring Lipetsk region citing the local emergencies ministry directorate, though neither outlet offered a cause.

The reports came just hours after regional governor Igor Artamonov announced on Telegram at around 3 a.m. that Lipetsk had “been subjected to a massive UAV (unmanned aerial vehicle) attack,” later adding a local power facility was damaged.

Ukrainian forces were pressing on with a major cross-border incursion into Russia, where state media and local officials on Friday also reported a “massive” drone attacks hundreds of kilometers from the border.

The Ukrainian offensive in the Kursk region over the past few days appears to be the most significant attack on Russian soil since the war in Ukraine began in 2022. It involved around 1,000 troops and more than two dozen armored vehicles and tanks, according to the Russian army.

Kyiv has not officially taken responsibility for the operation, but Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in his evening address on Thursday that Russia needed to “feel” the consequences of its invasion.

“Russia brought the war to our land and should feel what it has done,” Zelensky said, without directly referring to the offensive.

In a subsequent message, Artamonov urged residents to ignore calls on social media to leave Lipetsk — saying they were “spread by the enemy in order to sow panic” — only to reverse course less than an hour later.

“To eliminate the consequences of the detonation of explosive objects, a state of emergency is introduced in Lipetsk municipal district,” he said in a post at around 4 a.m., listing evacuation orders for four settlements on the outskirts of Lipetsk city.

“Temporary accommodation points and transport are being prepared.”

Artamonov said preliminary reports suggested at least six people had been wounded as a result of the attack.

He later announced around 7 a.m. that the red threat level for the city had been lifted.

Russia’s defense ministry said its forces shot down 75 Ukrainian drones overnight including 26 in the Belgorod region which borders Ukraine, 19 over Lipetsk, seven over Kursk, and 13 over the annexed Crimean peninsula and surrounding Black Sea.

Seven nautical drones headed for Crimea were also destroyed, it added.