Russian and Ukrainian forces overnight exchanged drone strikes that caused infrastructure damage in central Ukraine and extensive blackouts in a Russian border region, the two sides reported early on October 5.

Ukrainian air defenses shot down 24 out of the 29 Iranian drones launched from Crimea on the southern regions of Odesa and Mykolayiv, and on the central Kirovohrad region, the General Staff of Ukraine's military said in a statement.

"Twenty-four Shahed-131/136 drones were destroyed by the Air Force in cooperation with the Air Defense Forces," the military said on Telegram. It added that the attack damaged an infrastructure facility in the Kirovohrad region and caused a fire which had been put out.

There were no immediate reports of casualties.

In Russia's Kursk region that borders Ukraine, electricity was cut off in some areas following a Ukrainian drone strike overnight, regional Governor Roman Starovoit said early on October 5.

"There are power outages. Emergency crews have begun restoring the electricity supply," Starovoit wrote on his Telegram channel.

Starovoit said the strike targeted the region's Sudzhansky, Korenevsky, and Glushkovsky districts that border Ukraine's Sumy region. The SHOT Telegram channel, citing sources, said 67 settlements were left without electricity. The information could not be independently verified.

Russia, which has launched countless deadly drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian cities and energy infrastructure since the start of its unprovoked invasion of Ukraine in February last year, has been in recent months subjected itself to increasingly frequent aerial and naval drone strikes targeting regions close to the border and even Moscow.