Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on Tuesday that Ukraine had launched a drone attack on the Russian capital and its region, temporarily disrupting flight operations at the Vnukovo airport. “At this moment, the attacks have been repelled by air defence forces,” Sobyanin said on Telegram. “All detected drones have been eliminated”. There were no casualties or injured reported.
Landings and takeoffs at Moscow’s Vnukovo airport were restricted “for technical reasons beyond the control of the airport,” Russia’s Federal Air Transport Agency said. A number of flights were diverted to other airports.
Russian foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova claimed on Tuesday that Ukraine attempted to strike civil infrastructure, including the airport, which amounted to an “act of terrorism”. Over 18,000 civilians have been recorded as casualties inside Ukraine by the UN since Russia’s full-scale invasion of the country began in February 2022.
Nato members have agreed to extend the term of secretary general Jens Stoltenberg for a further year. The former prime minister of Norway has been in the role since 2014. In a statement on social media he said he was “honoured” and that “in a more dangerous world, our alliance is more important than ever”. US president, Joe Biden, welcomed the decision, saying “his steady leadership, experience, and judgment has brought our alliance through the most significant challenges in European security since the second world war.”
Hungary’s foreign minister said on Tuesday that he had been in touch with his Turkish counterpart about a ratification of Sweden’s Nato membership, and if there is a shift in Turkey’s stance then Hungary will not delay the process.
Russian President Vladimir Putin has told a virtual summit of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) that the world faces an increasing risk of conflict due to economic and financial instability, and thanked the leaders of China and India for their support during the recent Wagner mutiny in the country.
Russia sees no basis for renewing the Black Sea grain initiative, the Russian foreign ministry said on Tuesday, less than two weeks before the expiration of the agreement. A proposal by the UN to set up a special communications channel between JP Morgan and Russia’s state agricultural bank is not a valid alternative to reconnecting the bank to the international Swift payments system, the foreign ministry said
Suspilne reports that a man and a woman were killed Tuesday morning in Russian shelling of Ukraine’s southern city of Kherson. Additionally, three people have been injured by Russian shelling in Ukraine’s northern Chernihiv oblast.
Oleksiy Danilov has described recent days of battle as “fruitful” for Ukraine in terms of destroying the resources of the Russian forces. In a post to social media, the secretary of Ukraine’s national security and defence council described Ukraine as acting “calmly” and “wisely’ in its counteroffensive.
Russia’s state-owned news agency Tass has reported that the Ukrainian power line connected to the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant has been cut off. It cited Renat Karchaa, adviser to the general director of the Rosenergoatom.
A funeral service has taken place in Kyiv for the celebrated writer Victoria Amelina. A Ukrainian novelist, poet and public intellectual, she was killed by injuries sustained when a Russian missile attack struck a pizza restaurant in the eastern town of Kramatorsk. 12 people were killed in the attack, including children. When Russia launched its full-scale invasion of her country in 2022, Amelina set aside most of her writing to document and research war crimes.
