Ukraine drone hits Russian high-rise 1000km from frontline

A Ukrainian law enforcement officer stands next to a damaged residential building following a drone attack in Kharkiv late on December 20. Photo / AFP

• Kyiv launched a major drone attack on Kazan, damaging a high-rise but causing no casualties.
• The attack is part of escalating aerial strikes in the nearly three-year conflict.
• Russian authorities said some drones were shot down, and Kazan Airport was temporarily closed.

Kyiv launched a major drone attack on the Russian city of Kazan today, 1000km from the frontline, the latest in a series of escalating aerial attacks in the nearly three-year conflict.

A drone smashed into a high-rise apartment building in Kazan, a city of more than 1.3 million, damaging a skyscraper but leaving no victims, local officials said.

Though attacks so far into Russian territory are rare, Kazan and the surrounding oil-rich region of Tatarstan have previously been targeted by Ukrainian drones.

Such strikes are seen as embarrassing for Russia, almost three years into its military offensive on Ukraine.

“Today Kazan suffered a massive drone attack,” Rustam Minnikhanov, the head of Tatarstan, said in a post on Telegram.

“While before industrial enterprises were attacked, now the enemy attacks civilians in the morning,” he added.

Videos on Russian social media networks showed drones hitting high-rise buildings and setting off fireballs.

Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said two drones hit a 37-storey apartment block.

She said Ukraine had been targeting an unspecified industrial facility, but that it suffered no damage.

Ukraine, which has staged regular attacks on targets inside Russia since the start of the full-scale military offensive in February 2022, did not immediately comment.

Russian civil aviation authority Rosaviatsia temporarily closed Kazan International Airport, one of the country’s busiest.

Some residents were evacuated, but authorities did not provide figures, and all major public events in the area were cancelled as a precaution.

Alongside the two drones that hit the apartment block, three drones were shot down and three were suppressed by air defence systems, Zakharova said.

In a post on Telegram, she said Kyiv was taking out its “anger for tangible military defeats on the peaceful population of Russia”.

Russia’s Defence Ministry said today NZT that the Army had captured a new village near the key city of Kurakhove in eastern Ukraine where Russian forces have made major advances in recent months.

The attack on Kazan comes a day after Russian strikes on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv killed one and wounded 13, and after five were killed by a Ukrainian attack on the Russian border region of Kursk, where its troops have been staging an offensive since August.

– Agence France-Presse