“Today our region was massively attacked by Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicles, our air defense shot down 10 UAVs,” Starovoyt said in a Telegram message. “Thanks to all our military and concerned citizens who reported on incoming drones.”
There was no immediate official reaction from Kyiv. An official with Ukraine’s SBU security service, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss a sensitive matter, told The Washington Post on Friday that the substation was shut down as a result of “a successful attack” near the border.
Russia has recently reported an increase in attempted drone attacks by Ukraine. Ukrainian officials have emphasized that targets inside Russia are part of the conflict.
On Thursday, a Ukrainian drone destroyed a Russian radar system in the same area, an SBU source told Ukrainian outlet Hromadske.
The system, called Kasta, is a mobile surveillance radar meant to detect and repel threats flying at low altitudes. It was located near the village of Giri, around 100 kilometers from regional hub Kursk and less than 20 kilometers from the border with Ukraine.
“The Russians have said that it can detect even stealth aircraft, but it missed the SBU drone for some reason,” an SBU source told Hromadske.
The uptick in attacks — this week alone saw more airborne attacks reported in the Kursk region than during all of August — prompted local authorities to urge residents to report any drone sightings. Russia has recently rolled out a phone app that allows witnesses to report incoming drones or other airborne attacks to the security services. The program is similar to the ePPO application that has operated in Ukraine for a year.
Russian regions in the west of the country have worked to bolster their air defenses as Ukrainian forces grow more brazen. Their attacks — including several drone strikes that reached the Kremlin and the skyscrapers of Moscow’s business district — have rattled even the residents of Russia’s capital, hundreds of miles away from Ukraine.
“If you find a drone, do not touch or approach it, report it and wait for specialists,” Starovoyt said. “Even debris can be dangerous!”
Earlier this week, Ukrainian media reported that a group of Russian officers sent to examine an intercepted Ukrainian kamikaze drone in the Kursk area were “injured or killed” when a delay-action explosive went off. Though Russian military officials have not confirmed or commented on the incident, some prominent pro-invasion military bloggers in Russia reported on the event.
“One of the fallen drones turned out to have a ‘surprise,” wrote blogger Boris Rozhin. “Previously, the enemy had already used such tactics in the Kherson direction, where several drones shot down and landed with the help of electronic warfare blew up after they were detected.”
The UAV attack on Friday marked the third time the local electrical grid was reportedly targeted in the Kursk region. On Tuesday, a drone dropped an explosive on an electrical substation in the village of Snagost, leaving seven nearby settlements without power, and a mortar mine knocked out a power supply line in another small village of Popovo-Lezhachi, local authorities said.
Ukraine’s intelligence chief, Kyrylo Budanov, said in mid-September that the country’s military objectives when launching drones in Russia seek to deplete rival air defense systems, damage military aircraft and slow the production of Russian weapons.
A third of Russian military factories are located in the western part of Russia, which is increasingly within reach of Ukrainian drones, Budanov told Ukrainian outlet NV, citing recent attacks on the Kremni-El plant in Bryansk, one of the largest makers of microelectronics that are reportedly used in Iskander missile complexes, and Redkino Experimental Plant in Tver region that produces rocket fuel.
As Ukraine continues its counteroffensive efforts, Moscow appears to be preparing for a long war, bloating the military budget for next year and reforming “volunteer battalions” from what is left of the infamous Wagner mercenary group, whose boss Yevgeniy Prigozhin was killed in a murky plane crash a month ago — and two months after staging a short-lived mutiny.
Russia will increase its military spending by about 68 percent next year, Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said, citing the draft budget compiled by the Finance Ministry.
“Obviously, such an increase is necessary because we are living in a state of hybrid warfare,” he said. “This requires high spending.”
Russian President Vladimir Putin met late on Thursday with one of the most senior Wagner ex-commanders, Andrei Troshev, known by his nom de guerre Sedoi. The Kremlin said that Troshev now works for the Defense Ministry, a potential culmination of efforts among the country’s top brass to bring Wagner under its control following a bitter public feud between Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu and the now-deceased Prigozhin.
Deputy Defense Minister Yunus-Bek Yevkurov was in attendance alongside Putin. Yevkurov has recently been touring Africa and the Middle East, visiting capitals where Wagner had various security contracts in an apparent move to absorb their dealings beyond Russian borders.
Putin instructed Troshev to work on forming “volunteer units that can perform various combat tasks, above all, of course, in the zone of the special military operation,” a Kremlin euphemism for the war in Ukraine.
Telegram channels close to the Wagner Group that had previously amplified Prigozhin’s expletive-laden rants against Shoigu contested on Friday the Kremlin’s message that the group is now entirely under military control, claiming that only a fraction of Wagner fighters switched sides.
Kamila Hrabchuk contributed to this report.
