KYIV, Ukraine — Russia and Ukraine reportedly launched massive drone strikes on their respective territories for the second day in a row Sunday, one of which appeared to target a Russian military airport.
At least 35 Ukrainian drones were shot down overnight in three regions of southwestern Russia, the Russian Defense Ministry said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.
A Russian airbase that houses bombers used in the war in Ukraine was among the targets, according to the Kremlin-critical Russian Telegram channel.
The channel aired a short video of a drone flying over low-rise housing in what it claimed was the Russian city of Morozovsk, whose air base is home to Russia’s 559th Bomber Aviation Regiment.
Vasily Golubev, the governor of Russia’s Rostov region, separately reported “massive drone strikes” near Morozovsk and other towns further 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.
As of Sunday afternoon, Kyiv had not officially acknowledged or claimed responsibility for the drone strike.
A residential building burns after a Russian drone strike in Odesa, Ukraine on Dec. 17, 2023. via REUTERS
A major Ukrainian newspaper, Ukrainska Pravda, cited unnamed sources in the security services as saying that the Ukrainian military and intelligence services had successfully attacked the Morozovsk air base, causing “significant damage” to military equipment.
Could not immediately confirm this claim.
Also on Sunday morning, Ukraine’s air force said it shot down 20 Iranian-made Shahed drones launched overnight by Russian forces in southern and western Ukraine, as well as one X-59 cruise missile launched from the occupied south of the country.
A civilian was killed overnight near Odesa, a major port on Ukraine’s southern Black Sea coast, after the remains of a destroyed drone fell on his home, the Ukrainian military said.
A Ukrainian firefighter at the scene of the Odesa drone attack. via REUTERS
The increased drone strikes over the past month come as both sides are keen to show they are not deadlocked as the war nears its two-year mark. Neither side gained much ground despite the Ukrainian counteroffensive beginning in June.
Russian strikes on Sunday also killed an 81-year-old man in the center of Kherson, the southern Ukrainian city recaptured by Kyiv forces last fall, according to the head of its municipal military administration.
Ukrainian and Russian troops exchanged fire outside Terebreno, a Russian village just a few miles from the Ukrainian border, according to a Telegram post by Governor Vasily Gladkov.
He did not provide details, but insisted Russian authorities had the situation “under control.”
People inspect the damage to buildings after the overnight attack in Odesa. IGOR TKACHENKO/EPA-EFE/Shutterstock
According to Baza, a Telegram news channel set up by Russian journalists critical of the Kremlin, clashes between Russian troops and “Ukrainian separatist groups” began around 11 a.m. near Terebreno, home to about 200 people, forcing residents to hide in shelters.
A few hours later, a 69-year-old woman was reported killed in a Ukrainian border village in the northern Sumy region, about 15 miles west of Terebreno.
According to the Ukrainian regional prosecutor’s office, the woman died after a Russian bullet flew into her home. It is not clear if his death is linked to the reported fighting.
Late Sunday afternoon, an official of Ukraine’s border forces reported in a video statement that several Russian “sabotage and reconnaissance” operatives had crossed into Ukraine’s northern Sumy and Kharkiv regions.
Andriy Demchenko claimed that Ukrainian border guards and regional defense units managed to push them back to Russia.
Although 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. Kyiv described the incident as an uprising against the Kremlin by Russian partisans.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s foreign minister welcomed what he called a major change in Germany’s approach to Kyiv’s European Union membership bid.
In an interview with Germany’s Bild newspaper, Dmytro Kuleba said that German Chancellor Olaf Scholz has won “sincere and justified admiration” among Ukrainians for his role in the EU’s recent decision to open membership negotiations for Kyiv.
A woman and child stand amid the debris following the Russian attack. Photo by ANATOLII STEPANOV/AFP via Getty Images
Ukraine has long faced strong opposition in its bid to join the 27-member bloc from Hungarian Prime Minister Viktor Orbán, who has repeatedly spoken of his desire to maintain close ties with Russia.
Scholz said that at last week’s EU summit he proposed that Orbán leave the room to allow the summit to launch accession talks with Ukraine, something the Hungarian leader agreed to.
“What German Chancellor Olaf Scholz did at the summit to remove Hungary’s threatened veto will go down in history as an act of German leadership in the interest of Europe. The chancellor this week has won a lot of sincere and well-deserved admiration in the hearts of the Ukrainian people,” Kuleba told Bild.
He also voiced the hope that Scholz’s move would mark a “broader and irreversible shift” in Berlin’s approach to EU negotiations with Kyiv.
“When I campaigned in Berlin last May to grant Ukraine EU candidate status, my pleas for Germany to lead the process fell largely on deaf ears. ‘Germany does not want to lead,’ experts and politicians in Berlin told me. I am happy that German political decisions have changed since then,” said Kuleba.
The Ukrainian government has long placed EU and NATO membership as an important foreign policy goal, and the EU’s decision to begin accelerated negotiations gives Kyiv a big boost — even though it may be years before it can join.
Meanwhile, NATO leaders have set no clear timeline so far for Kyiv’s membership bid, although Moscow’s all-out invasion of Ukraine led to another Russian neighbor, Finland, being accepted into the military alliance in April.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has vowed to build military units near the Russian-Finnish border.
The Kremlin leader declared, without giving details, that Helsinki’s NATO membership would create “problems” for the Nordic country.
“There is no problem (between Russia and Finland). Now, there will be. Because we will create a (new) military district and concentrate certain military units there,” he told Russian state television on Sunday morning.
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Source: thtrangdai.edu.vn/en/
