Kiev, Ukraine (AFP) – Russia and Ukraine The two sides launched more than a dozen drones into each other’s territory for the second day in a row on Sunday, one of which appeared to target a Russian military airport.
At least 35 Ukrainian drones were shot down overnight over three regions in southwestern Russia, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a post on the messaging app Telegram.
A Russian air base hosting bomber planes used in the war in Ukraine was among the targets, according to a Russian Telegram channel critical of the Kremlin. The channel published short videos of drones flying over low-rise residences in what it claimed was the Russian city of Morozovsk, whose air base includes the Russian 559th Bomber Aviation Regiment.
Vasily Golubev, the governor of Russia’s Rostov region, separately reported “mass drone strikes” near Morozovsk and another town farther west, but did not mention the air base. Golubev said most of the drones were shot down and there were no casualties. He did not comment on the damage.
Also on Sunday morning, the Ukrainian Air Force said it shot down 20 Iranian-made Shahed drones launched by Russian forces overnight in southern and western Ukraine, as well as an X-59 cruise missile launched from the country’s occupied south.
The Ukrainian army said that a civilian was killed last night near Odessa, the main port on Ukraine’s southern Black Sea coast, after the remains of a destroyed drone fell on his house.
The increasing drone attacks over the past month come as both sides are keen to show they are not at an impasse. The war is approaching the two-year mark. Neither side has made significant gains despite a Ukrainian counteroffensive that began in June.
Russian bombing on Sunday also killed an 81-year-old man in the center of the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson, which Ukrainian forces regained control of last fall, according to the head of the municipal military administration.
Ukrainian and Russian forces exchanged fire outside Terebryno, a Russian village just kilometers from the Ukrainian border, according to telegram posts by Governor Vasily Gladkov. He did not provide details, but insisted that the Russian authorities had put the situation “under control.”
According to Baza, a news channel on the Telegram app set up by Russian journalists critical of the Kremlin, fighting between Russian forces and a “Ukrainian disinformation group” began around 11 a.m. near Terebryno, which is home to about 200 people, forcing residents to hide in shelters.
While cross-border raids into Russian territory from Ukraine are rare, the Russian military claimed in May to have killed more than 70 attackers, describing them as Ukrainian military saboteurs, in a 24-hour battle. Kiev portrayed the incident as an uprising against the Kremlin Russian partisanship.
At the same time, the Ukrainian Foreign Minister welcomed what he described as a radical change in Germany’s approach to the crisis Kyiv seeks European Union membership.
In an interview with German newspaper Bild, Dmytro Kuleba said German Chancellor Olaf Scholz had won “sincere and well-deserved admiration” among Ukrainians for his role in the EU’s recent decision to open Kiev’s membership talks.
Ukraine has long faced strong opposition in its attempts to join the 27-member bloc from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orban, who has repeatedly spoken of his desire to maintain close ties with Russia.
Schulz said that in European Union summit last week He suggested that Orban leave the room to enable the summit to launch accession talks with Ukraine, something the Hungarian leader agreed to do.
What German Chancellor Olaf Scholz did at the summit to remove the threat of the Hungarian veto will go down in history as an act of German leadership on behalf of Europe. “This week the chancellor has won a lot of sincere and well-deserved admiration in the hearts of Ukrainians,” Kuleba told Bild newspaper.
He also expressed hope that Schulz’s actions would represent a “broader and irreversible shift” in Berlin’s approach to EU negotiations with Kiev.
“When I campaigned in Berlin last May to grant Ukraine candidate status for EU membership, my pleas for Germany to take the lead in the process mostly fell on deaf ears. Experts and politicians in Berlin told me: ‘Germany does not want to lead.’” “I am happy that German political decisions have changed since then,” Kuleba said.
The Ukrainian government has long viewed EU and NATO membership as key foreign policy goals, and the EU’s decision to begin rapid negotiations has given Kiev a major boost – although it could take years before it can join. Meanwhile, NATO leaders have not yet set a clear timeline for Kiev’s bid for membership, although Moscow’s sweeping aggression against Ukraine led to Finland, one of Russia’s neighbours, being accepted into the military alliance in April.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has pledged to build military units near the Russian-Finnish border. The Kremlin leader announced, without giving details, that Helsinki joining NATO would create “problems” for the northern European country.
There were no problems (between Russia and Finland). Now, there will be. Because we will create a (new) military zone and concentrate certain military units there.”
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Associated Press writer Vanessa Gera in Warsaw, Poland, contributed to this report.
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