A Ukrainian soldier watches a drone feed from an underground command centre in Bakhmut in Ukraine. Photo / AP
A Ukrainian soldier watches a drone feed from an underground command centre in Bakhmut in Ukraine. Photo / AP
Three Russian troops died in a drone attack on a military airfield deep inside Russia this week.
It was the second time the Engels air base had come under attack by long-range drone in an apparent attempt to disrupt the Kremlin’s bombing campaign against Ukraine’s cities and energy infrastructure.
The airbase houses Tu-95 and Tu-160 nuclear-capable strategic bombers, which have been deployed to attack power stations.
“A Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicle [drone] was shot down at low altitude while approaching the Engels military airfield in the Saratov region,” said the Russian defence ministry.
“Three Russian servicemen of the technical staff who were at the airfield were fatally wounded as a result of falling drone wreckage.”
Roman Busargin, the governor of Saratov Oblast, said no residents or civilian infrastructure were harmed in the attack. Engels airbase is located near the city of Saratov, more than 640km from the frontlines in Ukraine.
The airfield is around 700km southeast of Moscow, where people have been out celebrating Christmas. Photo / AP
Earlier this month, a blast there damaged two Tu-95s and injured two people.
On the same day, Russia accused Ukraine of carrying out a separate attack on the Dyagilevo airfield, near the city of Ryazan. Three people were killed in the suspected attack and six injured when a fuel tanker exploded.
Ukraine has not accepted responsibility for the attacks, but Yurii Ihnat, a Ukrainian air force spokesman, said Monday’s incident was a “consequence of what Russia is doing on our land”.
It came as Ukraine called for Russia to be removed from the United Nations, at which Moscow can veto any resolution as a permanent member of the Security Council.
“Ukraine calls on the member states of the UN ... to deprive the Russian Federation of its status as a permanent member of the UN Security Council and to exclude it from the UN as a whole,” the foreign ministry said in a statement.
The statement said Russia “illegally occupies the seat of the USSR in the UN Security Council” since the break-up of the Soviet Union in 1991.
Meanwhile, the Belarusian military said Russia’s nuclear capable Iskander ballistic missiles and S-400 air defence systems had been deployed in Belarus and were ready to use.
Local crews have completed their training at a Russia-run centre and are ready to operate the missile systems, a leading Belarusian military official said late on Sunday. It was not clear how many Iskander missile systems Moscow has deployed to Belarus.
