Drone strikes reported in Ukraine’s Odesa and Dnipro regions, Russia’s Kursk region targeted in Ukrainian attack

It is day 580 of the war in Ukraine. Russia launched attack drones overnight, targeting ports in the Odesa region.

More strikes were also recorded in the Dnipro region in central Ukraine.

Russia says it downed five drones over the Kursk region.

Austria has allocated €1 million to fund IAEA activities in Ukraine.

Novaya-Europe’s news round-up will brief you on the main developments overnight.

Drones target port facilities in Ukraine’s Odesa region

Russia launched a two-hour-long drone strike on the Odesa region in southern Ukraine overnight, regional governor Oleh Kiper reported on Tuesday. 

While Kiper didn’t specify how many drones had been involved in the attack, he said that the majority of them had been intercepted.

He added that drones managed to strike Black Sea port infrastructure and that two people had been injured in the strike. Fires that broke out were subsequently extinguished, Kiper said.

Explosion rocks Kryvyi Rih in central Ukraine 

Kryvyi Rih, the home town of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, was attacked overnight with a missile strike targeting an industrial facility, Dnipro regional governor Serhiy Lysak said on Tuesday. 

No further details of the attack were given, though the head of the city defence council, Oleksandr Vilkul, said that nobody had been killed.

Lysak said that the region’s Nikopol district had also been targeted by heavy artillery strikes, adding that while some damage was recorded, nobody was injured.

Drones downed over Kursk region

Five drones have been intercepted over Russia’s southern Kursk region, which borders Ukraine, the Russian Defence Ministry said on Tuesday. 

Four drones were reportedly shot down overnight, while another was downed on Tuesday morning.

Kursk region Governor Roman Starovoyt said that one drone had dropped an explosive device on an electricity substation in the village of Snagost in the morning, cutting power supplies to seven nearby villages. No one was injured.

Austria to allocate €1 million for IAEA in Ukraine

The Austrian government has announced the allocation of €1 million to support the work of the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) in Ukraine, the RBC-Ukraine news agency reported on Tuesday.

Austrian Foreign Minister Alexander Schallenberg personally thanked IAEA head Rafael Grossi when announcing the funding, saying that he was “acutely aware” of his “staff’s risks and personal sacrifices to provide us with crucial information and some sense of security”.

For the past year, the IAEA has been involved in securing Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia Nuclear Power Plant, the safety of which has been compromised on several occasions as Russian and Ukrainian forces fought in the surrounding region.