Russian ‘kamikaze’ drones hit Kyiv, Putin arrives in ally Belarus

By Reuters: Moscow launched a “kamikaze” drone assault on Monday, hitting key infrastructure in and round Kyiv, hours earlier than Russian President Vladimir Putin arrived in Belarus, fuelling fears he’ll strain his ally to affix a brand new offensive on Ukraine.

The Ukrainian Air Force mentioned its air defences shot down 30 drones, within the third Russian air assault on the Ukrainian capital in six days and the newest in a sequence of assaults since October which have focused the Ukrainian energy grid, inflicting sweeping blackouts amid sub-freezing temperatures.

Officials mentioned a minimum of three folks have been wounded, and 9 buildings broken within the Kyiv area.

The Ukrainian atomic vitality company accused Russia of sending one of many drones over a part of the South Ukraine Nuclear Power Plant, within the Mykolaiv area.

“This is an absolutely unacceptable violation of nuclear and radiation safety,” Energoatom wrote on Telegram.

Also Read: Russia and China to carry joint naval drills this week

Invading Russian forces at present occupy the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant, Europe’s largest, close to the entrance line in southeastern Ukraine.

“Kamikaze” drones used within the assaults, are cheaply produced, disposable unmanned plane that fly in the direction of their goal earlier than plummeting at velocity and detonating on influence.

Under the darkness of night time, a fireplace raged at an vitality facility within the usually focused central Shevchenkivskyi district, a Reuters witness mentioned.

“I heard an explosion. And in three or four minutes I heard another explosion,” mentioned an outdated man who works at a guard at a close-by hospital.

The Solomianskyi district within the western a part of Kyiv, a busy transport hub, dwelling to a prepare station and one of many metropolis’s two passenger airports, was additionally hit.

Kyiv officers mentioned 18 out of 23 drones have been shot down over town of three.6 million.

“As a result of the attack on the capital, critical infrastructure facilities were damaged,” Vitali Klitschko mentioned on the Telegram messaging app.

“Engineers are working to quickly stabilise the situation with energy and heat supply.”

Oleskiy Kuleba, governor of the area surrounding Kyiv, mentioned infrastructure and personal properties have been broken and that two folks have been wounded. He mentioned the assault triggered “fairly serious” harm and three areas had been left with out energy.

BELARUS ACTIVITY

There has been fixed Russian and Belarusian army exercise for months in Belarus, a detailed Kremlin ally that Moscow’s troops used as a launch pad for his or her abortive assault on Kyiv in February.

Putin’s journey, for talks with Belarusian chief Alexander Lukashenko, is his first to Minsk since 2019 – earlier than the pandemic and a wave of Belarusian protests in 2020 that Lukashenko crushed with sturdy assist from the Kremlin.

“During (these talks) questions will be worked out for further aggression against Ukraine and the broader involvement of the Belarusian armed forces in the operation against Ukraine, in particular, in our opinion, also on the ground,” Ukrainian joint forces commander Serhiy Nayev mentioned earlier than Putin’s arrival.

Lukashenko has mentioned repeatedly

he has no intention of sending his nation’s troops into Ukraine.

The Kremlin dismissed the suggestion that Putin wished to push Belarus right into a extra energetic position within the battle. The RIA Novosti information company quoted Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov as saying such reviews have been “groundless” and “stupid”.

Also Read: Russia fires greater than 70 missiles in considered one of its largest assaults on Ukraine

Russian troops that moved to Belarus in October will conduct battalion tactical workouts, the Russian Interfax information company reported, citing the Russian defence ministry.

It was not instantly clear once they would begin.

The 10-month-old battle in Ukraine is the most important in Europe since World War Two, killing tens of 1000’s of individuals, driving hundreds of thousands from their properties and decreasing cities to ruins.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy mentioned the armed forces have been holding agency within the city of Bakhmut – scene of the fiercest combating for a lot of weeks as Russia makes an attempt to advance in japanese Ukraine’s Donetsk area.

“The battlefield in Bakhmut is critical,” he mentioned. “We control the town even though the occupiers are doing everything so that no undamaged wall will remain standing.”

Zelenskiy on Monday known as on Western leaders assembly in Latvia, together with British Prime Minister Rishi Sunak, to provide a variety of weapons programs.

Denis Pushilin, Russian-installed administrator of the a part of the Donetsk area managed by Moscow, mentioned that Ukrainian forces shelled a hospital within the Donetsk metropolis, killing one individual and injuring a number of others.

Russia’s defence ministry mentioned over the previous 24 hours its forces had shot down 4 U.S.-made HARM anti-radiation missiles over the Belgorod area, which borders Ukraine, the state-run TASS information company reported.

Reuters couldn’t independently confirm the battlefield accounts.

Putin casts what he calls Russia’s “special military operation” in Ukraine because the second when Moscow lastly stood as much as the U.S.-led Western bloc looking for to capitalize on the 1991 fall of the Soviet Union by destroying Russia.

Also Read: Russia launches one other main missile assault on 3 Ukrainian cities, together with Kyi

Kyiv and the West say that assertion is absurd and that Putin has no justification for what they see as an imperial-style warfare of aggression that has put Russia in command of round a fifth of Ukraine.

Moscow mentioned on Monday Russian and Chinese forces would maintain joint naval drills between Dec. 21 and Dec. 27, involving missile and artillery firing within the East China Sea.

While the drills have been held yearly since 2012, Moscow has sought to strengthen its political, safety and financial hyperlinks with Beijing in latest months and sees Chinese President Xi Jinping as a key ally in an anti-West alliance.

Published On:

Dec 19, 2022