Russia, Ukraine trade drone attacks
Air base hosting bombers among sites targeted
KYIV — Russia and Ukraine reportedly launched mass drone attacks at each other’s territories for a second straight day Sunday, one of which apparently targeted 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 aircraft used in the war in Ukraine was among the targets, according to a Russian Telegram channel critical of the Kremlin. The channel posted short videos of drones flying over low-rise housing in what it said was the Russian town of Morozovsk, whose air base is home to Russia’s 559th Bomber Aviation Regiment.
Vasily Golubev, the governor of Russia’s Rostov province, separately reported “mass drone strikes” near Morozovsk and another town farther west, but didn’t mention the air base. Golubev said most of the drones were shot down and there were no casualties. He didn’t comment on damage.
As of Sunday evening, Kyiv didn’t formally acknowledge or claim responsibility for the drone attacks. A major Ukrainian newspaper, Ukrainska Pravda, cited an anonymous source in the security services as saying that Ukraine’s army and intelligence services successfully struck the Morozovsk air base, inflicting “significant damage” to military equipment. It wasn’t immediately possible to verify this claim.
Also Sunday morning, Ukraine’s air force said it shot down 20 Iranian-made Shahed drones launched overnight by Russian troops in southern and western Ukraine, as well as one X-59 missile launched from the country’s occupied south.
A civilian was killed overnight near Odesa, a key port on Ukraine’s southern Black Sea coast, after the remnants of a destroyed drone fell on his house, Ukraine’s military said.
Stepped-up drone attacks over the past month come as both sides are keen to show they aren’t deadlocked as the war approaches the two-year mark. Neither side has gained much ground despite a Ukrainian counteroffensive that began in June.
Russian shelling on Sunday also killed an 81-year-old man in central Kherson, the southern Ukrainian city that was recaptured by Kyiv’s forces last fall, according to the head of its municipal military administration.
Ukrainian and Russian forces exchanged fire outside Terebreno, a Russian village just miles from the Ukrainian border, according to Telegram posts by Governor Vasily Gladkov. He did not provide details, but insisted Russian authorities had the situation “under control.”
According to Baza, a Telegram news channel set up by Russian journalists critical of the Kremlin, fighting between Russian troops and a “Ukrainian diversionary group” began around 11 a.m. near Terebreno, home to some 200 people, forcing residents to hide in shelters.
Ukraine’s foreign minister, meanwhile, welcomed what he called a sea change in Germany’s approach toward 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 well-deserved admiration” among Ukrainians for his role in the EU’s recent decision to open membership talks for Kyiv.
Ukraine has long faced strong opposition in its attempts to join the 27-member bloc from Hungary’s prime minister, Viktor Orbán, who has repeatedly spoken of his desire to maintain close ties with Russia.
Scholz said that at an EU summit last week he proposed that Orbán leave the room to enable the summit to launch accession talks with Ukraine, something that the Hungarian leader agreed to do.
“What German Chancellor Olaf Scholz did at the summit to remove the threatened Hungarian veto will go down in history as an act of German leadership in the interests of Europe. The chancellor has this week won a lot of sincere and well-deserved admiration in the hearts of Ukrainians,” Kuleba told Bild.