Russia launched its largest drone attack on Ukraine for weeks early on Friday, hitting critical infrastructure in the west and south of Ukraine and destroying private houses and commercial buildings in Kharkiv. The Ukrainian air force said it shot down 24 “Shahed” drones out of 40 launched by Russia, with Kharkiv, Odesa, Kherson, Ivano-Frankivsk and Lviv among the targets.
Ukraine’s air force said the latest drones were launched in several waves and flew to different regions in small groups. Air alerts in some regions lasted for several hours during the night. No casualties were reported, but Lviv’s governor, said an infrastructure facility had been hit five times during the attacks on his region, a military facility was hit in Ivano-Frankivsk, and Kharkiv’s governor said drones had hit civilian infrastructure and caused fires in and near the city of Kharkiv.
Officials say Ukraine is bracing for a second winter of Russian air strikes on the energy system, which they warn is more vulnerable than it was last year as it has less excess capacity and little in the way of spare equipment. “We realise that as winter approaches, Russian terrorists will try to do more damage. We will respond to the enemy,” president Volodymyr Zelenskiy said of the attack.
In Russia, Foreign Office spokesperson Maria Zakharova has dismissed the latest round of US sanctions against Russia. On state television, Rueters reports she said “This is a continuation of the policy of inflicting as they call it – a strategic defeat on us. They will have to wait in vain forever before that happens”. On Thursday, the US state department imposed new sanctions targeted at Russia’s future energy capabilities, sanctions evasion and the manufacture of suicide drones. The Biden administration added a dozen Russian companies to a trade blacklist, and announced a crackdown on sanctions evasion in the UAE, Turkey and China.
President Vladimir Putin on Thursday signed a law withdrawing Russia’s ratification of the global treaty banning nuclear weapons tests. US secretary of state Antony Blinken criticised Russia for leaving the Comprehensive Nuclear Test Ban Treaty and called on Moscow to commit not to test. “Unfortunately, it represents a significant step in the wrong direction, taking us further from, not closer to, entry into force” of the treaty, Blinken said in a statement.
Annalena Baerbock, the German foreign minister, said on Thursday she was confident that the European Union next month would advance Ukraine’s bid to join the bloc at a summit seen as a key milestone in Kyiv’s efforts to integrate with the west. Germany proposed a detailed and innovative roadmap to expand the EU that would give candidate countries such as Ukraine early benefits including observer status at leaders’ summits in Brussels before full membership.
Russia rejected comments from Ukraine’s most senior military official that their nearly two-year conflict had reached a stalemate. “No, it has not reached a stalemate,” Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “Russia is steadily carrying out the special military operation. All the goals that were set should be fulfilled,” he added, using the Kremlin’s term for its full-scale military intervention.
Peskov was responding to an interview in British media with Ukraine’s commander-in-chief of the armed forces, Gen Valery Zaluzhny, who said the war in Ukraine was “at a stalemate” and there was likely to be “no deep and beautiful breakthrough” soon in the counteroffensive against Russia.
Mike Johnson, the US Republican House of Representatives speaker, has said that a bill pairing Ukraine aid with US border security “will come next”, after the body’s vote on a standalone Israel aid measure.
The Biden administration planned on delivering $425m in new military aid to Ukraine, Reuters has quoted two US sources as saying. The officials said the long-term money will be provided through the Ukraine Security Assistance Initiative, which funds contracts for larger weapons systems that need to be either built or modified by defence companies.
Russia said on Thursday it had handed jail terms to two Ukrainian soldiers who fought in the city of Mariupol, as it continued to put dozens of captive soldiers on trial. Thousands of Ukrainian fighters were taken prisoner after Russia seized control of Mariupol last May, some of whom were sent to Russia or tried by Moscow-backed courts in occupied east Ukraine. Rights groups and western countries have criticised Moscow for putting captured Ukrainian soldiers on trial.
Polish truckers will block several border crossings with Ukraine starting next week in protest at what they say is Ukrainian hauliers’ free rein in Poland that is hurting their business, a co-organiser of the protest said.
