MOSCOW – Russia and Ukraine downed drones and rockets overnight as polling stations opened across Russia on the first day of voting in the presidential election.
Kyiv has launched some of its largest air attacks on Russia this week ahead of the vote, which is set to hand President Vladimir Putin another six-year term in the Kremlin.
Russia’s defense ministry said Friday it had downed drones and rockets over the Belgorod border region and the Kaluga region, southwest of the capital Moscow.
“Air defence equipment intercepted and destroyed five drones and two rockets over the territories of the Belgorod and Kaluga regions,” it said in a statement on Telegram.
In a later statement it said another seven Ukrainian-launched rockets had been shot down over Belgorod at 8:15 am — shortly after voting got underway in the region.
The state-run RIA Novosti news agency said voters left a polling station in Belgorod city to head to a bomb shelter as authorities issued an air alert and ordered people to take cover.
The governor of Russia’s Lipetsk region also said Friday two drones were downed in a district around 300 kilometres (180 miles) away from Ukraine.
Ukraine’s air force said Russia fired 27 Iranian-style drones and eight missiles at its territory overnight.
In a statement on social media, it said: “27 out of 27 Shaheds were destroyed.”
Polling stations were opening across Russia’s 11 time zones on Friday, as Putin called on voters to back his leadership despite a “difficult period” for the country.
Meanwhile, a Moscow-installed official on Friday said Ukrainian shelling of the Russian-held city of Donetsk killed three children.
Russia claims to have annexed the Donetsk region, even though it does not have full control of it and the frontline regional capital comes under frequent shelling attacks.
“As a result of barbaric overnight shelling … a direct hit was recorded on a house in the residential sector,” Alexey Kulemzin, the Russian-appointed mayor of Donetsk, said in a post on Telegram.
“Three children died. A girl born in 2007, a girl born in 2021, and a boy born in 2014,” he added.
Russian forces last month captured the city of Avdiivka — just a few kilometres to the north of Donetsk — and says pushing Ukrainian forces back will help protect residents of areas under its control from shelling.
The city center of Donetsk is around 20 kilometers from the frontlines.
The Donetsk region has been at war since 2014 when Russian-backed separatists started an armed conflict to try to secede from Ukraine following a pro-EU revolution in Kyiv. AFP