Ukrainian drones target sites in nine Russian regions. Fighters of the Freedom for Russia Legion cross the Russian border in tanks, continue their operation. A Russian IL-76 plane crashes in the Ivanovo region.
Ukrainian drones target sites in nine Russian regions
Overnight on Tuesday, Ukrainian drones targeted sites in nine Russian regions, including the Kursk, Belgorod, Tula, Voronezh, Nizhny Novgorod, Bryansk, Leningrad, and Oryol regions, and the capital Moscow. Oil facilities were set on fire in the Oryol and Nizhny Novgorod regions.
The largest oil refining unit at Lukoil’s Norsi refinery in Kstovo in the Nizhny Novgorod region was shut down due to the drone attack and subsequent fire, Gleb Nikitin, governor of the Nizhny Novgorod region confirmed. Some of the refinery’s production was halted due to “an incident”, Lukoil said, without giving further details.
Oryol governor Andrey Klychkov said that a drone hit a fuel and energy complex in the region’s capital city, causing a fire that was later extinguished.
Fighters of the Freedom for Russia Legion cross Russian border in tanks, continue operation
On March 12, three units of Russian volunteers fighting for Ukraine — the Freedom for Russia Legion, the Russian Volunteer Corps, and the Siberian Battalion, made an incursion into Russia. The groups purportedly entered the Belgorod and Kursk regions in armored vehicles. The Freedom for Russia Legion wrote on social media: “Like all our fellow citizens, in the Legion we dream of a Russia freed from Putin’s dictatorship. But we don’t just dream: we work hard to realize those dreams.”
On Tuesday morning, a video surfaced on Russian social media showing a tank allegedly driving through the border village of Lozovaya Rudka in Russia’s Belgorod region. The Freedom for Russia Legion released a video of an alleged border incursion on armored vehicles, including tanks overnight on Tuesday. The group posted driver’s seat footage taken in the dark of an armored vehicle on the move.
Fighters of the Freedom for Russia Legion, the Russian Volunteer Corps, and the Siberian Battalion are advancing in the Kursk and Belgorod regions. They are defeating the Russian Armed Forces, fighting continues, a volunteer of the Freedom for Russia Legion, Alexey Baranovskyi who goes by the call sign Lyutik, said on Ukrainian television.
Later in the morning, Ilya Ponomaryov, a former Russian MP who now lives in Ukraine said that the groups had taken full control of Lozovaya Rudka and had entered the Kursk and Belgorod regions “in a joint raid.” He also said that small arms battles continue in the village of Tyotkino, in the Kursk region. The Freedom for Russia Legion claimed full control of Tyotkino, but later updated the message to say that the battles there continue.
In a video statement, a member of the Freedom for Russia Legion said the group was coming to Russia for the election. “We are not coming to kill, erase or punish. We come to liberate you from poverty and dictatorship,” he said.
The cross-border raids follow one of the biggest Ukrainian drone attacks on sites across Russia overnight on Tuesday.
Russian IL-76 plane crashes in Ivanovo region
Russia’s Defense Ministry reported that an IL-76 military transport plane with eight crew and seven passengers crashed shortly after takeoff in the Ivanovo region on Tuesday after one of the engines caught fire. All 15 people onboard were killed, according to local reports. The plane was not able to reach the Severny airfield and fell near a local cemetery.
According to the Russian service of the Radio Liberty, the Severny airfield is a base for A-50 early warning and control planes and military transport aircraft.
Russian authorities said “the cause of the disaster was a fire in one of the engines during takeoff.”