Kyiv said Saturday it struck two weapons depots in southern and western Russia — including a key site for Moscow’s forces — with Russian authorities announcing some evacuations and declaring a local emergency situation.
Kyiv also said a Russian nighttime strike on President Volodymyr Zelensky’s home city of Kryvyi Rih killed a 12-year-old boy and two elderly women.
The attacks came ahead of an upcoming trip by Zelensky to the United States, where he is due to present his plans on how to end the nearly 31-month-long war.
Kyiv’s army said it had hit an arms depot near the city of Tikhoretsk in the southern Krasnodar region, calling it one of Moscow’s “three largest ammunition storage bases” important to the Russian army’s logistics for its Ukraine invasion.
It also said it struck an arsenal in the western Tver region.
Authorities in Tver and Krasnodar said they had been attacked but Russia did not say exactly what was struck.
Krasnodar Governor Vieniamin Kondratyev announced the evacuation of 1,200 people from villagers, saying a drone attack caused a fire that “spread to explosive objects” near Tikhoretsk.
He later said a state of a “local emergency situation” was introduced in Tikhoretsk — a city of some 50,000 people — in the southern region.
Explosion
Authorities said most villagers were staying with relatives, while others were in temporary accommodation in Tikhoretsk.
“It is important that there is no threat to people. But it will take time to fully check the territory,” Kondratyev warned.
Videos on social media showed a massive explosion in the dark resembling fireworks at first before blowing up loudly.
Footage online later showed sirens ringing around Tikhoretsk, a city of some 50,000 people in daylight, with smoke rising into the air in the distance.
Authorities said villagers had been evacuated, with most staying with relatives while others were placed in temporary accommodation in Tikhoretsk.
Authorities published footage of villagers — mostly elderly people — arriving to a room with set-up beds, as well as volunteers greeting evacuees arriving by bus.
The local government said they are being provided with medical and psychological assistance.
The Krasnodar region is separated from occupied Ukraine by the Azov sea and has been relatively spared from the type of attacks on Russian border or other southern regions.
But over the last year it has seen increased assaults.
In the western Tver region, authorities announced the temporary closure of a major federal road after the Ukrainian attack near the city of Toropets.
Boy killed in Kryvyi Rih
In the central Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih, authorities said Russia had struck “private houses” at night, releasing images of brick houses razed to the ground.
“The boy killed by Russians in Kryvyi Rig was 12-years-old,” the head of the Dnipropetrovsk region, Serhiy Lisak, said on Telegram.
“The missile strike also ended the lives of two women, aged 75 and 79,” he added.
Authorities earlier said that a night-time strike had destroyed two houses and damaged “two dozen,” also damaging a school.
Kryvyi Rih, where Zelensky was born, has been targeted by Russia throughout its more than two-year-long invasion.
Ukraine also said two people were wounded in a Russian drone attack in the southern Kherson region on Saturday.
