Sawt Falasteen - Ukraine claims biggest aerial strike on Russian territory

The Russian military accused Kyiv of using US- and British-supplied missiles for one of the strikes and promised it would "not go unanswered".

The barrage forced schools in the southwestern Saratov region to close, while at least nine airports in central and western Russia temporarily halted traffic, according to Russian officials.

Moscow and Kyiv have upped strikes on each other ahead of US President-elect Donald Trump's inauguration next week, as both sides seek to gain the upper hand in potential negotiations aimed at settling the nearly three-year war.

"The Ukrainian Defence Forces carried out the most massive strike against the occupiers' military facilities, at a distance of 200 to 1,100 kilometres (125 to 700 miles) deep into the territory of the Russian Federation," Ukraine's General Staff said in a post on social media.

Facilities "in the Bryansk, Saratov, Tula regions and the Republic of Tatarstan were hit," it added.

Among the targets were a chemical factory that makes rocket fuel and ammunition for Russia's army, an oil depot near a Russian air base and an oil refinery.

The governor of Russia's Saratov region, Roman Busargin, said the scale of the attack there was "massive".

Schools in the cities of Saratov and Engels were holding classes online on Tuesday because of the attacks, he added.

Firefighters had only the day before managed to put out a blaze at an oil depot in the city of Engels, which was hit by a Ukrainian drone strike on January 8.

Kyiv's army said it had hit the same site again.

- 'Successful' strike -

In the energy-rich region of Tatarstan, a Ukrainian drone struck a gas storage tank, sending flames and thick smoke billowing toward the sky near the city of Kazan, according to media and the regional government.

Tatarstan local media said a liquefied gas storage base was hit, and published images showing flames and black smoke.

Russia's defence ministry said it shot down six US-supplied ATACMS missiles and six British Storm Shadow cruise missiles that Ukraine had fired in the attack on the Bryansk region.

Ukraine's army had earlier claimed it had hit a chemical plant near the town of Seltso, more than 100 kilometres from the border, that makes ammunition and explosives for Russia's army.

"Drones successfully distracted Russian air defences, paving the way for missiles that hit the main targets," the Ukrainian military's Unmanned Systems Forces said.

Ukraine regularly targets military and energy sites in Russia, part of what it calls "fair" retaliation for Russia's repeated barrages of its energy grid since Moscow invaded in February 2022.

"Systematic work to destroy facilities that supply ammunition, military equipment, and fuel and lubricants to the Russian occupation army will continue until the Russian Federation's armed aggression against Ukraine is completely stopped," the army said.

The Ukrainian air force said separately that its air defence systems had downed 58 Iranian-designed drones launched by Russia, while another 21 were destroyed with electronic interference systems or crashed.

- Russian advances -

A Ukrainian official in the Kharkiv region meanwhile said on Tuesday morning that a 52-year-old resident of the town of Kozachya Lopan had been killed by Russian artillery fire.

The overnight Ukrainian attacks come at a difficult moment for Kyiv's forces along the front line, particularly in the eastern Donetsk region.

City authorities in Pokrovsk, Russia's main target in the region, repeated a call on Tuesday for remaining residents to flee. Around 60,000 people lived in the city before Russia invaded in February 2022.

Moscow said on Tuesday it had re-captured two Ukrainian villages in the eastern Donetsk region -- Neskuchne and Terny -- that Kyiv had wrested back from Russian control earlier in the conflict, symbolic blows for Kyiv's struggling army.

The Russian defence ministry said the area around Neskuchne was a strategically important logistics hub for Ukraine, and published footage showing air strikes against the shells of charred concrete buildings, already completely destroyed by previous attacks.

K.Hassan--SF-PST