Ukrainian Long-Range Drone Attacks Expose Russian Air Defenses; Ukraine Hits Russian Airfields, Moscow Strikes Back With Barrage; Ukraine Downs 60 Russian Missiles Amid Another Mass Strike on Energy System; Support for War ‘Falling Significantly’ Among Russian Public, LIVE UPDATES and MORE

NY POST: Ukrainian long-range drone attacks expose Russian air defenses:

A third Russian airfield was ablaze on Tuesday from a drone strike, a day after Ukraine demonstrated an apparent new ability to penetrate hundreds of kilometers deep into Russian air space with attacks on two Russian air bases.

Officials in the Russian city of Kursk, located closer to Ukraine, released pictures of black smoke above an airfield in the early morning hours of Tuesday after the latest strike. The governor said an oil storage tank there had been set ablaze but there were no casualties.

It came a day after Russia confirmed it had been hit by what it said were Soviet-era drones – at Engels air base, home to Russia’s fleet of giant strategic bombers, and in Ryazan, just a few hours drive from Moscow. Kyiv did not directly claim responsibility for the strikes but celebrated them.

“If Russia assesses the incidents were deliberate attacks, it will probably consider them as some of the most strategically significant failures of force protection since its invasion of Ukraine,” Britain’s ministry of defense said on Tuesday.

“The Russian chain of command will probably seek to identify and impose severe sanctions on Russian officers deemed responsible for allowing the incident.”

Russia’s defense ministry said three service members were killed in the attack at Ryazan. Although the attacks struck military targets it characterized them as terrorism and said the aim was to disable its long-range aircraft.

The New York Times, citing a senior Ukrainian official, said the drones involved in Monday’s attacks were launched from Ukrainian territory, and at least one of the strikes was made with the help of special forces close to the base. —>READ MORE HERE

NY POST: Ukraine hits Russian airfields, Moscow strikes back with barrage:

Ukraine struck two airfields deep within Russia Monday, prompting a fusillade from Moscow that hit civilian buildings and infrastructure, and raising the specter of further escalation in the nine-month conflict.

The Russian Ministry of Defense said Monday that Ukrainian drones penetrated Russian airspace to strike two air bases in south-central Russia, at Ryazan and Saratov.

Russia said three servicemen were killed and four wounded in the attack, and two warplanes were damaged.

One of the airfields, Engels air base outside of Saratov, is home to a squadron of nuclear-capable bombers.

“The Kyiv regime, in order to disable Russian long-range aircraft, made attempts to strike with Soviet-made unmanned jet aerial vehicles at the military airfields Dyagilevo, in the Ryazan region, and Engels, in the Saratov region,” the Russian defense ministry said.

The New York Times reported Monday that an anonymous senior Ukrainian official had confirmed Kyiv’s responsibility for the strike. Officially, though, Ukraine stopped short of claim the strike as its own.

“If something is launched into other countries’ airspace, sooner or later unknown flying objects will return to departure point,” Zelensky advisor Mykhailo Podolyak retorted in a tweet. —>READ MORE HERE

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