Russia targets Ukraine with overnight drone strikes
Ukraine's military said early Monday that Russia had launched 14 Iranian-made attack drones at targets across the country, as air-raid warnings blared for hours overnight in Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities.
The strikes left at least two people dead in the western city of Khmelnytskyi, according to local officials. Eleven of the 14 drones were shot down by air defenses, Ukraine's military said.
As the war enters its second year, Russia has shown no sign of easing its attacks on Ukrainian cities, even as its ground forces struggle to gain territory along the front line in eastern and southern Ukraine. Russian artillery strikes pounded towns and cities in the south and east Sunday, killing at least five civilians, Ukrainian officials said. Here are other developments: •China's Foreign Ministry said the United States was being “hypocritical” with its warnings against sending weapons to Russia for use in Ukraine. President Joe Biden's national security adviser, Jake Sullivan, said Sunday that Western allies were sending a “clear message” to
China that it would be a mistake to give Russia weapons because they would be used to attack civilians. U.S. officials are closely watching China's stance on the conflict, especially as Beijing prepares this week to host President Alexander Lukashenko of Belarus, a major Kremlin ally.
• U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken is scheduled to visit Kazakhstan and Uzbekistan this week to meet with Central Asian officials, with the aim of encouraging them to maintain distance from Russia and China. Blinken will then travel to India for a meeting of foreign ministers from the Group of 20 nations. It is unclear whether Russia and China will send top diplomats to the G-20 meeting, and, if so, whether they and Blinken will meet.
•President Vladimir Putin of Russia suggested in an interview broadcast Sunday that his country faced a long-term conflict with Western nations, which have pledged further military aid to Ukraine. “They have one goal: to break up the former Soviet Union and its main part, the Russian Federation,” Putin said in the interview, which was recorded last week after he appeared at a pro-war rally in Moscow.