Lt. Gen. Keith Kellogg discusses the latest with the Ukraine and Russia war after a deadly Russian attack on'America Reports.' Russian officials said Ukrainian drones ignited an overnight fire at a nuclear plant in Russia's Kursk region. The strikes coincided with Ukraine's 34th Independence Day, marking its 1991 break from the Soviet Union. Russia said the strikes hit several power facilities. The plant fire was quickly extinguished. A transformer was damaged, but radiation levels remained normal, and no injuries were reported.

Ukraine's armed forces claim to have made significant headway via a series of attacks on the Russian-occupied east bank of the Dnipro river. The country's Marine Corps said in a statement published on social media on Friday that it had gained "a foothold on several bridgeheads" of Dnipro, near the key southern city of Kherson. The waterway is the de facto front line in the south of Ukraine. However, Russia conceded for the first time this week that Ukrainian forces had claimed back some territory on the opposing bank. "The Defence Forces of Ukraine conducted a series of successful operations on the left bank of the Dnipro River, along the Kherson front," the marines said, and "managed to gain a foothold on several bridgeheads."

In the east Ukrainian city of Bakhmut, 15 kilometres (nine miles) from the positions held by Russian forces, an artillery unit waits for the signal. The four soldiers duck and put their hands over their ears. "According to the coordinates we received, the target is infantry," says Oleksandr, 37, between two radioed orders. Around 30 seconds later, the 50 kilo (110-pound) "fragmentation" shell, pinched from the Russians after their retreat from a nearby town, will explode above the position held by Moscow's troops, showering them with its payload. A Ukrainian drone supports the operation "in real time", monitoring the effectiveness of the strike from the old Soviet D-20 cannon in order to better calibrate the next one.

For young Ukrainian geeks, making drones -- for reconnaissance or destruction -- in a house basement near the Donbas frontline is "new generation" guerrilla warfare. In dim light, the 20-somethings busily piece together electronic components spread out on tables, with the help of laptops and documents, while artillery fire thuds in the background. Next the repair room next door -- a laundry room before the war -- drones are patched up using spare parts taken from aircraft damaged "in battle" against the Russians. In the garden shed meanwhile, a 19-year-old, whose nom de guerre is Varnak, transforms grenades designed for grenade launchers into bombs to be dropped from drones. You just add fins to them and change the detonation system, he tells AFP, smiling.