Videos posted on Russian social media showed flames rising from apartment blocks and from the 25-storey Galereya Chizhova business centre, with thick black smoke drifting over neighbouring districts. Other footage showed burning private homes, a damaged commercial building, residential blocks with blown-out windows and at least ten cars ablaze in a car park. Residents picked through the wreckage, where drone engine fragments were found.

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Alexander Gusev, the governor, said air defences brought down 113 drones over the region, more than 70 of them directly above the city. Russia’s defence ministry claimed 290 across the country.

Debris also started fires at several industrial plants — local reports named the Voronezhsintezkauchuk rubber works and the VASO aircraft factory — as well as two dacha settlements, a school sports ground, a garage cooperative and an apartment building. The Novovoronezh nuclear plant said it was operating normally.

Most of the injured were aboard the Anapa–Moscow train when debris struck near Somovo station, Russian Railways said. Five passengers were hurt, two seriously, and rail traffic through the city was suspended. Gusev confirmed three people were killed.

Kyiv has not commented. Independent monitors could not establish whether the explosions beside apartment blocks were direct hits or falling debris, a distinction the governor’s account leaves open. A strike on Voronezh three days earlier hit the Baltimor military airfield.