A fire broke out at a military facility in Russia’s Volgograd region early Thursday morning following a Ukrainian drone attack, local authorities said.
Russian air defence forces repelled the assault, destroying most of the Ukrainian drones, Volgograd Governor Andrei Bocharov was quoted by the regional administration’s Telegram channel, Xinhua news agency reported.
“As a result of a drone crash, a fire broke out on a Defence Ministry facility,” Bocharov wrote on Telegram.
“Fire and rescue services promptly started firefighting efforts. There were no casualties.”
Russia’s Defence Ministry did not immediately comment on the reported fire, saying only that its forces destroyed 13 drones over the Volgograd region as part of wider Ukrainian drone attacks across the country overnight.
Flight operations at Volgograd Airport have been disrupted.
There has been no official confirmation regarding restrictions on airspace usage in the region.
Eyewitness videos published by the independent Telegram news channel Astra showed thick smoke and explosions at what was claimed to be the Marinovka airbase. Several fires at the Marinovka base were later recorded by NASA observation satellites.
Open-source intelligence bloggers said at least 14 Su-24 and 15 Su-34 bomber aircraft were housed at Marinovka earlier this week.
Russia’s investigative news outlet iStories, citing state media, reported that Marinka’s Su-34s may have been used to bomb Ukrainian targets in southwestern Russia’s Kursk region earlier on Thursday.