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Three killed in second attack on Engels base deep inside Russia

26 December 2022 09:50 (UTC +04:00)

Three Russian military personnel were killed early on Monday by falling wreckage of a Ukrainian drone that was shot down as it was attacking a base in Russia’s Saratov region, APA reports citing Reuters.

“A Ukrainian unmanned aerial vehicle was shot down at low altitude while approaching the Engels military airfield in the Saratov region,” news agencies reported the Russian ministry as saying.

“As a result of the fall of the wreckage of the drone, three Russian servicemen of the technical staff who were at the airfield were fatally wounded.”

The base, near the city of Saratov, about 730 km (450 miles) southeast of Moscow and hundreds of kilometers from the front lines in Ukraine, was hit on Dec. 5 in what Russia said were Ukrainian drone attacks on two Russian air bases that day.

The twin strikes dealt Russia a major reputational blow and raised questions about why its defenses failed, analysts said, as attention turned to the use of drones in the war between neighbors.

Ukraine has never publicly claimed responsibility for attacks in Russia but has said, however, that such incidents are “karma” for Russia’s invasion.

The Russian defense ministry said that aviation equipment was not damaged, but according to unofficial Russian and Ukrainian social media reports, a number of planes were destroyed.