On Tuesday, Russia’s Defense Ministry announced that its air defense systems successfully intercepted nearly 200 Ukrainian drones during a second night of extensive aerial assaults, with local officials indicating damage to several industrial locations.
In the Nizhny Novgorod region, which lies to the east of Moscow, Governor Gleb Nikitin reported that 30 drones were shot down over an “industrial zone” in the town of Dzerzhinsk. He noted in a Telegram post, “Some debris fell onto the premises of an enterprise, but there was no significant damage to the industrial infrastructure.” Just a day prior, Nikitin had mentioned an incident involving 20 drones.
Ukraine’s General Staff indicated on Monday that its drones hit the Y.M. Sverdlov explosives factory near Dzerzhinsk. A Ukrainian intelligence source and representatives from the Council of the European Union informed Reuters that this factory is Russia’s primary producer of high explosives such as RDX and HMX.
Additionally, in the Voronezh region in the southwest, Governor Alexander Gusev reported on Tuesday that debris from 17 downed Ukrainian drones caused damage to the windows of a local heating facility.
Later, Rosenergoatom, the state operator of Russia’s nuclear power plants, claimed that a Ukrainian drone crashed into a cooling tower at the Novovoronezh Nuclear Power Plant, situated close to Voronezh. They asserted that the incident did not result in significant damage, and the plant continued to operate normally.
In the nearby Belgorod region, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov mentioned that 1,000 residents were without electricity following the latest drone attacks. He had previously reported the deaths of two individuals, one of whom was a worker assisting in restoring power, as a result of a Ukrainian rocket strike on Monday afternoon.
The Defense Ministry revealed that overnight, 31 drones were intercepted in the Belgorod region and 18 over Voronezh. After announcing the downing of 184 Ukrainian drones, they reported an additional 34 drones shot down throughout Tuesday morning.
This incident marks the second consecutive day of significant Ukrainian drone assaults, with Russia reporting a total of 251 drones downed on Monday night.
