War

A large fire at an arms depot has prompted local authorities to evacuate some 600 people in southwest Russia’s Voronezh region.
Governor Aleksandr Gusev said on Telegram that the fire in the region’s Ostrogoz district was caused by debris from a drone downed on the morning of September 7. Gusev said nearby residents of several settlements were evacuated to safety and that no injuries were reported.Videos showing a large fire and in which explosions can clearly be heard were posted on social media sites.The Russian Defense Ministry, while reporting that Ukrainian drones had been shot down over Russia’s southwestern Belgorod and Kursk regions, made no mention of any drone attacks in the Voronezh region.Gusev in late August announced the evacuation of about 600 residents of the Voronezh region’s Ostrogoz district after claimed drone downings led to fires and the detonation of explosives that lasted almost two days.In Ukraine, the air force reported on September 7 that air defenses were scrambled across the country to defend against a massive overnight drone attack by Russia. The air force said 67 long-range drones were shot down.On the evening of September 6, one person was reported killed in the southeastern city of Pavlohrad in the Dnipropetrovsk region as the result of missile strikes, and that 64 people were injured in the region.Russian forces were also continuing to push toward the strategic city of Pokrovsk in Ukraine's Donetsk region, where RFE/RL's Ukrainian Service captured footage from near the front line that showed the village of Novohrodivka ablaze.Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on September 6 appealed to allied partners at a meeting of the Ukraine Defense Contact Group in Germany to free Ukraine to use donated weapons to strike deeper into Russian territory.U.S. Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin said after the meeting that no single military weapon would be decisive for Ukraine to defeat Russia's full-scale invasion and that the use of donated U.S. weapons for long-range strikes into Russia would not turn the tide of the war in Ukraine's favor.Austin said Russia had moved its glide bombs back to positions beyond the range of U.S.-made Army Tactical Missile Systems (ATACMS) and that Ukraine itself had significant capabilities to attack long-range targets.