The Russian air defense system destroyed 16 Ukrainian drones on the night of January 4, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense. Ten drones were shot down over the Bryansk region, three over the Smolensk region, and one each over the Belgorod, Pskov, and Leningrad regions.
The governor of Leningrad region, Alexander Drozdenko, reported that a drone was shot down in the area of the Luga Bay in the Gulf of Finland. He claims there were no casualties or damage. According to the Telegram channel "Caution, News," the drone attempted to attack the Ust-Luga seaport, where an evacuation of employees was announced. Later, Drozdenko reported two more drones shot down in the Luga Bay area; debris from one of them fell in the forest.
At Pulkovo Airport in St. Petersburg, flight restrictions were implemented twice during the night and morning of January 4. The first restriction was from 23:43 to 00:48 local time, according to Meduza citing "78". The restrictions were reintroduced at 07:45, as stated by Rosaviatsiya. They were lifted at 10:15. During this time, 20 aircraft were redirected to alternate airfields.
In the city of Shebekino, in Belgorod region, two civilians were injured as a result of drone attacks, the governor reported. The day before, a resident of the village of Prelestnoe sustained a shrapnel wound to the leg, said regional governor Vyacheslav Gladkov. Power lines were damaged in Prokhorovka.
The heads of the Smolensk and Bryansk regions stated that there were no casualties or damage from the attack. The governor of the Pskov region has not commented on the attack yet.
Residents of the city of Safonovo in the Smolensk region reported explosions during the night on local social media. The city is home to the "Avangard" factory of the state corporation "Tactical Missile Armament," which produces rocket engine casings, transport-launch containers, and armor elements, among other things. The Ukrainian Telegram channel Exilenova+ speculated that the factory might have been the target of the attack. There were no reports of damage to the facility.
Meanwhile, a resident of Kyiv region, who was injured by a Russian strike on Friday, died in the hospital, reported the acting head of the regional military administration Nikolai Kalashnik on Saturday. According to him, the woman, born in 2002, sustained a severe abdominal injury, and doctors fought for her life for almost a day but were unable to save her.
Another injured person remains in intensive care with a back injury, the administration stated. On January 3, it was reported that as a result of a nighttime drone attack, one person was killed, and four others were injured.
According to data from the Air Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, on the night of Saturday, the Russian army attacked Ukraine using 81 drones. Ukrainian air defense shot down 34 drones, and another 47 were lost due to location failure. The regions of Poltava, Sumy, Kharkiv, Kyiv, Chernihiv, Cherkasy, Kirovohrad, Dnipropetrovsk, Odesa, and Mykolaiv were under attack. In Chernihiv and Sumy regions, private homes were damaged as a result of the drone attacks.
Russians shelled Nikopol in the Dnipropetrovsk region with heavy artillery. As a result of the attack, three people were injured, and a 71-year-old man was hospitalized in moderate condition.
The Russian leadership denies that the Russian army is deliberately targeting civilian infrastructure.