- Russia’s defense ministry stated on Saturday that Ukraine has intensified its assaults on Russian energy facilities, striking these targets 14 times within the past 24 hours, even with a truce facilitated by the U.S. The Ukrainian armed forces dismissed this claim as “fake” and “misinformation.”
The ministry stated in aTelegram-posted announcement that Ukraine has “increased the frequency of unilateral assaults through drone strikes and artillery fire on the energy facilities within Russian territories.”
The statement indicated that the strikes resulted in damages across various Russian regions including Bryansk, Belgorod, Smolensk, Lipetsk, and Voronezh, along with portions of Ukraine’s Luhansk and Kherson territories, areas that Russia has taken control over.
could not confirm the veracity of the strike reports. In a statement posted on Telegram, Ukraine’s armed forces claimed these reports were false and asserted that their troops were exclusively targeting military objectives.
Ukraine's armed forces have mentioned before that they ceased attacking Russian power plants on March 18.
Last month, Russia and Ukraine consented to a U.S.-proposed 30-day truce aimed at halting attacks on one another’s energy facilities. However, both parties have subsequently leveled accusations against each other regarding violations of this agreement.
This agreement was part of an extensive diplomatic initiative undertaken by U.S. President Donald Trump following his comeback to office in January with the aim of resolving the dispute.
On Saturday, officials from two different areas in Russia separately announced that Ukrainian drones had attacked local industrial sites.
The governor of Russia’s Volga River region of Mordovia stated that Ukrainian drones had attacked an industrial site. According to media reports, this facility was an optical fiber plant located in Saransk, the regional capital.
The governor of the Samara region, which is also situated along the Volga River, mentioned that a facility in Chapaevsk was targeted by Ukrainian drones.
A source from Ukraine's SBU security agency reported that the objective was a facility manufacturing industrial explosives, stating that the attack resulted in numerous blasts and conflagrations.
On Friday, a Russian attack on the Ukrainian city of Kryvyi Rih resulted in at least 19 fatalities, with nine of those being children, according to local authorities.
The Russian Defense Ministry claimed they struck a military meeting in the city, but this assertion was refuted by Ukraine’s armed forces who dismissed it as misinformation.
(Reported by Felix Light, with additional reporting from Olena Harmash and Ronald Popeski Editing by Tomasz Janowski and Barbara Lewis)