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Ukraine claims largest aerial attack inside Russian territory.
Moscow and Kiev have upped strikes ahead of Trump’s inauguration next week, as both sides seek to gain the upper hand in potential negotiations.
Ukraine has carried out its largest aerial attack on Russian territory of the nearly three-year war overnight, Kiev said, hitting factories and energy hubs hundreds of kilometres from the frontline.
The Russian military accused Kiev of using US and British-supplied missiles for one of the strikes and promised it would “not go unanswered”.
The barrage on Tuesday forced schools in the southwestern Saratov region to close, while at least nine airports in central and western Russia temporarily halted traffic, according to Russian officials.
“The Ukrainian Defence Forces carried out the most massive strike against the military facilities, at a distance of 200 to 1,100 kilometres deep into the territory of the Russian Federation,” Ukraine’s General Staff said in a post on social media.
Facilities “in the Bryansk, Saratov, Tula regions and the Republic of Tatarstan were hit,” it added.
Among the targets were a chemical factory that makes rocket fuel and ammunition for Russia’s army, an oil depot near a Russian air base and an oil refinery.
The governor of Russia’s Saratov region, Roman Busargin, said the scale of the attack there was “massive”.
Schools in the cities of Saratov and Engels were holding classes online on Tuesday because of the attacks, he added.
Firefighters had only the day before managed to put out a blaze at an oil depot in the city of Engels, which was hit by a Ukrainian drone strike on January 8.