Ukrainian drone attack prompts evacuations in Russia
A drone strike from Ukraine has caused a fire and forced the partial evacuation of residents in the town of Toropets, in the western part of Russia's Tver region, regional authorities said on Wednesday.
Firefighters were engaged in extinguishing the fire, Igor Rudenya, governor of the region located northwest of Moscow, said in a post on the region's administration channel on the Telegram platform. He has not announced who caught fire.
According to a report published in 2018 by the Russian state news agency RIA, Russia was building a warehouse to store rockets, ammunition and other explosive devices in Toropets, a 1000-year-old town with a population of about 11.000.
Schools and kindergartens switched to online teaching in Zapadnovisnki district, bordering Toropets, the district administration announced on the VKontakte social network.
Russian air defense units have destroyed 54 drones that Ukraine had launched overnight to attack five western regions of Russia, Russian state news agencies reported, citing a Russian Defense Ministry report.
Regional governors did not report any damage from these attacks.
But Russia's Defense Ministry did not mention the Tver region, which has the Moscow region on its southeastern border.
It has not been possible to independently verify the reports, while Ukraine has not issued any announcement.
Kiev has previously said its strikes in Russia are aimed at hitting military, energy and transport infrastructure that are key to Russia's war in Ukraine.
Russian officials rarely detail the full extent of the damage caused by the Russian attacks.
As Ukraine has ramped up domestic drone production over the past two years, it has stepped up attacks on Russian territory.
Ukraine's largest-ever drone strike hit the Russian capital in September, killing at least one person, damaging homes and disrupting flights from Moscow's airports.