On the night of August 31 to September 1, the Ukrainian military carried out the largest series of drone attacks on targets in the Russian Federation. Drones struck 16 regions of the aggressor country.
This became known from a report by the Institute for the Study of War (ISW).
The report cites data from the Russian Defence Ministry, according to which Russian air defense systems destroyed 158 Ukrainian drones: 46 over Kursk Oblast, 34 over Bryansk Oblast, 28 over Voronezh Oblast, 14 over Belgorod Oblast, nine over Moscow and the region, eight over Ryazan Oblast, five over Kaluga Oblast, four over Lipetsk Oblast, three over Tula Oblast, two each over Tambov Oblast and Smolensk Oblast, and one each over Oryol, Tver Oblast, and Ivanovo Oblast.
Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said Russian troops shot down two Ukrainian drones near the Moscow Oil Refinery in Kapotnya, and that debris from the drones damaged a technical room at the plant and caused a fire.
ISW noted that Russian sources published footage of a Ukrainian drone attack on a Moscow oil refinery and a small fire in the area, although some characterized the fire as a normal gas flare-up at the facility.
"Kashirsky District Chairman Mikhail Shuvalov reported that Ukrainian forces targeted the Kashira State District Power Plant in the Kashira District of Moscow Oblast using three drones, while Russian sources released footage of Russian air defenses being activated and explosions occurring near the plant," the report said.
At the same time, the press service of the Tver region stated that a Ukrainian drone caused a fire in the Konakovsky district, and Russian sources published footage of a drone strike on the Konakovskaya GRES, and also indicated a further large fire at the station and damage inside it.
A Russian opposition publication reported that after attacks by Ukrainian drones in the Tver region, a fire broke out in the Konakovo gas distribution network along the KGMO-Konakovo main gas pipeline.
Kaluga Region Governor Vladislav Shapsha noted that a Ukrainian drone damaged a mobile communications tower in the Tarusa District of Kaluga Region.
The opposition publication "Important Stories" reported that data received from NASA FIRMS indicate thermal anomalies at the Novolipetsk Metallurgical Plant in the Lipetsk Region, a military facility of the 106th Airborne Division in the Tula Region, two cement plants in Voskresensk and Kolomna in the Moscow Region, and a cement plant in Ferzikovo in the Kaluga Region on the night of August 31 to September 1.
"Only the FIRMS data from the Tula site appears anomalous, as other sites regularly emit thermal signatures due to normal industrial activity," the ISW report notes.