Moscow, 20 April 2024 (dpa/MIA) — Ukrainian drone attacks on Russian territory have caused the death of a man and a woman and damaged energy installations in southern Russia, the authorities reported on Saturday.

The two died when their house caught alight after an explosive device struck it, Belgorod Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov reported on the Telegram messaging service.

In the Smolensk region, fragments from a downed drone hit a fuel tank and set it alight, and energy equipment was damaged in the Bryansk and Kaluga regions, the reports said.

The Russian Defence Ministry reported intercepting 50 drones targeting eight regions in the early hours of Saturday. Belgorod saw 26 such attacks.

Pro-Kremlin newspaper Izvestia reported the death of one of its war reporters in the war zone. Dual US-Russian citizen Russell Bentley, who was on assignment for the state-owned Sputnik news agency, died in Donetsk in Russian-occupied eastern Ukraine.

According to media reports, Bentley, a 64-year-old Texan, was abducted by the occupying Russian forces who took him for a spy. The circumstances of his death, which was announced by the editor-in-chief of state broadcaster RT, Margarite Simonyan, were unclear.

Ukraine reported Russian missile attacks on infrastructure in Zaporizhzhya and Odessa. No details were provided. Two out of seven Russian missiles had been downed, the Ukrainian air force reported.

Ukraine has been attacking Russian energy infrastructure over recent months in response to repeated Russian attacks on its energy infrastructure since the start of the Kremlin's full-scale invasion in February 2022.