Village evacuated after debris from missile attack hits Russian military site: official
Russian authorities say air defences repelled a strike in the Volgograd region, but falling fragments set a defence ministry facility ablaze near Kotluban.
Russia has said that it repelled a missile attack in the Volgograd region but that debris ignited a fire at a military facility and prompted the evacuation of a nearby village.
"Air defence units of the Russian Ministry of Defence repelled a missile attack on Volgograd region," regional Governor Andrey Bocharov posted on Telegram on Thursday.
"Falling debris caused a fire on the grounds of a Ministry of Defence facility near the village of Kotluban," he added, without elaborating on the site.
While there were no casualties, he said evacuation orders were being carried out in the nearby village of Kotluban "to ensure civilian safety from the threat of detonation during firefighting".
Farther north in Russia's Tambov region, the governor said college students had to be relocated after a Ukrainian drone strike started a fire.
"The fire has now been extinguished. There were no injuries," Evgeny Pervyshov said.
Russia and Ukraine have accused each other of launching strikes that undermine ongoing negotiations to end the nearly four-year-long war.
Under US pressure, they have opened talks but remain at odds, with Moscow demanding sweeping territorial and political concessions from Ukraine that Kiev says would be tantamount to capitulation.
Russia launched its military offensive on Ukraine in February 2022 and now controls around a fifth of the country, including the Crimean peninsula which it annexed in 2014.