A woman is seriously injured in a bombardment with cluster munitions in the border city of Rilsk (Russia)

Drone attack causes blackouts in Russia's Kursk region

Russian authorities reported this Thursday that a drone attack has caused blackouts in the Kursk region, near the border with Ukraine, where in recent months Russia's air defenses have increased interceptions of unmanned aerial vehicles in the framework of the Ukrainian offensive.

The governor of Kursk, Roman Starovoit, has indicated that the drones have hit several infrastructures in the Sudzanski, Korenevski and Glushkovski districts.

"There are power outages. Emergency teams have already begun to restore power," Starovoit added in a post on his Telegram channel.

Minutes later, the governor reported that a woman has been taken to hospital after being seriously injured in a cluster munition bombing in the border town of Rilsk.

"Houses, outbuildings and cars have been damaged in different parts of the city. Unexploded explosive devices have also been found and searchers are working," he explained.

The Russian Defense Ministry reported the day before that its air defenses had destroyed 31 drones overnight over the Belgorod, Bryansk and Kursk regions, without causing damage or casualties, while announcing that Russian troops had a called for an attempted "penetration into the territory of Crimea by a landing party of the Ukrainian Army."

At the end of August, British Intelligence services stated that Russia's air defense systems would be having "difficulties" in detecting and destroying drones launched by Ukraine, before emphasizing that "most likely, Russia is again think about its defensive posture in the area between Ukraine and Moscow to better confront these attacks.

In fact, the same source updated that Moscow had already managed to "recalibrate the posture" of its air defense systems around the capital in the face of the latest attacks within the framework of the invasion of Ukraine, unleashed in February 2022.