2023-09-30 13:25:00
Russia confirmed a Ukrainian attack on an electrical substation in the Kursk region
A Ukrainian drone attack on an electrical substation briefly left 5,000 people without power in Russia’s Kursk region, an area where authorities reported attacks and shelling almost every day over the past week.
The governor of the Kursk region, Roman Starovoyt, declared on Friday that a Ukrainian drone dropped explosives on the substation in the town of Belaya, leaving nearby areas without power, including a hospital that had to run on a diesel generator. for some time. According to Starovoyt, the supply was restored on Friday afternoon.
“Today our region was massively attacked by Ukrainian UAVs, our air defense shot down 10 UAVs,” Starovoyt said in a Telegram message. “Thank you to all of our military and concerned citizens who reported the incoming drones.”
There was no immediate official reaction from kyiv. An official with the Ukrainian security service SBU, who spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter, told The Washington Post on Friday that the substation was closed as a result of “a successful attack” near the border.
Russia has recently reported an increase in attempted drone attacks by Ukraine. Ukrainian authorities have stressed that targets inside Russia are part of the conflict.
On Thursday, a Ukrainian drone destroyed a Russian radar system in the same area, an SBU source told the Ukrainian media Hromadske.
Russia confirmed a Ukrainian attack on an electrical substation in the Kursk region
The system, called Kasta, is a mobile surveillance radar intended to detect and repel low-flying threats. It was located near the town of Giri, about 100 kilometers from the Kursk regional center and less than 20 kilometers from the border with Ukraine.
“The Russians have said that it can detect even stealth aircraft, but for some reason it did not detect the SBU drone,” an SBU source told Hromadske.
The spike in attacks – more airstrikes have been recorded in the Kursk region this week alone than in all of August – has led local authorities to urge residents to report any drone sightings. Russia has recently launched a phone application that allows witnesses to inform security services of the arrival of drones or other air attacks. The program is similar to the ePPO application that has been operating in Ukraine for a year.
Russian regions in the country’s west have scrambled to bolster their air defenses as Ukrainian forces become more brazen. Their attacks – including several drone strikes that hit the Kremlin and the skyscrapers of Moscow’s financial district – have unnerved even residents of the Russian capital, hundreds of kilometers from Ukraine.
“If you find a drone, do not touch it or approach it, report it and wait for specialists,” Starovoyt said. “Even remains can be dangerous!”
Earlier this week, Ukrainian media reported that a group of Russian officers sent to examine a Ukrainian kamikaze drone intercepted in the Kursk area were “injured or killed” when a delayed-action explosive detonated. Although Russian military officials have not confirmed or commented on the incident, some prominent pro-invasion military bloggers in Russia reported on the event.
“One of the downed drones turned out to have a ‘surprise,’” blogger Boris Rozhin wrote. “Previously, the enemy had already used this type of tactics in the Kherson direction, where several drones shot down and landed with the help of electronic warfare flew into the air after being detected.”
Friday’s UAV attack marked the third time the local power grid has reportedly been the target of an attack in the Kursk region. On Tuesday, a drone dropped an explosive on an electrical substation in the village of Snagost, knocking out power to seven nearby settlements, and a mortar mine brought down a power line in another small village of Popovo-Lezhachi, reports said. local authorities.
The head of Ukrainian intelligence services, Kyrylo Budanov, stated in mid-September that the country’s military objectives in launching drones in Russia are to undermine rival air defense systems, damage military aircraft and slow down Russian weapons production.
A third of Russian military factories are located in the western part of Russia, increasingly within reach of Ukrainian drones, Budanov told Ukrainian media NV, citing recent attacks on the Kremni-El plant in Bryansk, one of the largest manufacturers of microelectronics apparently used in the Iskander missile complexes, and the Redkino experimental plant in the Tver region, which produces rocket fuel.
As Ukraine continues its counteroffensive efforts, Moscow appears to be preparing for a long war, swelling the military budget for next year and reforming “volunteer battalions” from what remains of the infamous Wagner mercenary group, whose leader, Yevgeniy Prigozhin, He died in a shady plane crash a month ago, and two months after leading a short-lived mutiny.
Russia will increase its military spending by about 68% next year, declared Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov, citing the draft budget prepared by the Ministry of Finance.
“Obviously, such an increase is necessary because we live in a state of hybrid warfare,” he said. “This requires a lot of spending.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin met late Thursday with one of Wagner’s most senior former commanders, Andrei Troshev, known by his nom de guerre Sedoi. The Kremlin said Troshev now works for the Defense Ministry, a possible culmination of efforts among the country’s top brass to bring Wagner under its control following a bitter public dispute between Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and the late Prigozhin. .
Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov was present alongside Putin. Yevkurov has recently been touring Africa and the Middle East, visiting capitals where Wagner had several security contracts, in an apparent move to absorb his dealings beyond Russian borders.
Putin instructed Troshev to work on forming “volunteer units that can perform various combat tasks, especially, of course, in the zone of the special military operation,” a Kremlin euphemism for the war in Ukraine.
Telegram channels close to the Wagner Group, which had previously amplified Prigozhin’s expletive-laden rants against Shoigu, on Friday disputed the Kremlin’s message that the group is now fully under military control, claiming that only a fraction of the Wagner Group’s fighters Wagner changed sides.
(c) 2023, The Washington Post
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