Ukrainian drone attacks wound 18 people in Russian regions, governors say

MOSCOW (Reuters) -At least 18 people were wounded and houses and other buildings damaged in Ukrainian drone attacks overnight in the Russian regions of Voronezh, Lipetsk and Bryansk, governors there said on Tuesday.

Russia's air defence units destroyed 12 drones over the Voronezh region, which borders Ukraine, Governor Alexander Gusev said on the Telegram messaging app.

Sixteen people, including a teenager, were hurt as a result of the attack, he said. Residential buildings in the city of Voronezh and its outskirts were damaged, along with regional commercial facilities.

Unverified video published by Mash, a Telegram channel close to Russian security services, showed an aerial object crashing into a building on a busy residential street in Voronezh, followed by a large fireball.

The city's mayor, Sergei Petrin, said a kindergarten had been damaged and children were being temporarily transferred to neighbouring facilities.

In the city of Yelets in the Lipetsk region, a drone crashed in an industrial zone, injuring one person, regional governor Igor Artamonov said on Telegram.

In the Bryansk region, a woman was injured in a drone attack on the village of Sluchevsk, said the regional governor, Alexander Bogomaz.

The Russian defence ministry said on Telegram that its units destroyed 55 Ukrainian drones overnight over five Russian regions and the Black Sea, including three over the Lipetsk region.

There was no immediate comment from Ukraine about the attacks.

Both sides deny targeting civilians in their strikes during the war that Russia launched against Ukraine more than three years ago. But thousands of civilians have died in the conflict, the vast majority of them Ukrainian.

Ukraine has launched multiple air strikes on Lipetsk, a strategically important region with an air base that is the chief training centre for the Russian Aerospace Forces.

(Reporting by Reuters in Moscow and Lidia Kelly in Warsaw; Editing by Christian Schmollinger, Kim Coghill, Kate Mayberry and Bernadette Baum)