Russian glide bomb airfield ablaze after Ukraine strike

Putin seeks arrest of UK journalist covering Kursk offensive

- ALEXANDER BUTLER

Ukraine has targeted an airfield deep inside Russia in a drone attack aimed at destroying Russian glide bombs that have been used to target Ukrainian border regions. Footage showed thick black smoke billowing above the Marinovka airfield in Volgograd, where the one-tonne bombs - used to flatten Ukrainian buildings – were believed to have been hit at 3.30am yesterday.

Up to 28 drones were launched across Russia by Ukraine in the attack, according to the Russian defence ministry, with Moscow claiming the airfield fire was caused by falling debris. “Most of the drones were destroyed. As a result of the UAV crash, a fire broke out on the territory of a defence ministry facility,” Andrey Bocharov, the region’s governor, said.

However, a Ukrainian security source said a storage site for fuel and glide bombs was hit in the early morning attack. The source added that the attack was part of a campaign of Ukrainian drone strikes on Russian airfields that are used by warplanes to conduct regular attacks on targets in Ukraine.

In recent months, Kyiv has flagged Russia’s use of the cheaply-produced glide bombs dropped by Putin’s warplanes as a particular menace to Ukrainian settlements in the east.

It comes as Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelesnky visited Ukraine’s border Sumy region, close to where his military launched a shock attack across the border into Russia’s Kursk. Mr Zelensky said he had met his top commander, Oleksandr Syrskyi, during the visit, nearly two weeks after the cross-border offensive which is estimated to have taken around 300 square miles of territory.