Kiev [Ukraine], October 20: Two people have died in Russian drone attacks in the eastern Ukrainian region of Donetsk, Governor Vadym Filashkin wrote on Telegram on Sunday.
Filashkin said one person died and two were injured in the village of Staroraiske, south-west of Kramatorsk, while another died in Kostyantynivka, an industrial town to the south of Kramatorsk. One person was injured in Druzhkivka.
Russia and Ukraine exchanged drone attacks overnight. The Ukrainian Air Force said it downed 40 of the 62 drones of various types launched by Russia.
Nineteen drones struck seven different locations, it said.
The Ukrainian civil protection authority reported damage to several apartment blocks in Shakhtarske in the Dnipropetrovsk region, around 100 kilometres east of the regional capital of Dnipro.
Regional governor Vladyslav Hayvanenko wrote on Telegram that 11 people were injured.
In Moscow, the Russian Defence Ministry reported downing 45 Ukrainian drones, with most of them intercepted in the Samara and Saratov regions along the Volga River. No information on possible damage or injuries was reported.
Orenburg Governor Yevgeny Solntsev reported drone attacks on a gas plant, with one strike leading to a fire in a workshop in the region, which lies in the Urals more than 900 kilometres from Ukraine.
No staff members were injured, and firefighting efforts were ongoing, Solntsev said.
The Ukrainian General Staff confirmed that it had carried out drone attacks on an oil refinery in Novokuybyshevsk in the Samara region and a gas processing plant near Orenburg.
According to information published on Telegram by the Kazakh Energy Ministry, the plant had to temporarily stop accepting natural gas from nearby Kazakhstan.
Russian gas company Gazprom has not provided any information on the extent of the damage or how long repairs will take.
Ukraine has been warding off a full-scale Russian invasion since February 2022. Both sides are making intensive use of combat drones in the war, even far behind the front line.
Source: Qatar Tribune
