Russia renews missile attacks on Kyiv, attacks intensify in the east
Russia on Saturday launched a missile attack on Ukraine's capital Kyiv and the surrounding region for the first time in more than seven weeks and pounded the east and south of the country with drones, Ukrainian officials said.
Ukrainian border guards said they had retaken a village in the country's northeast adjacent to the Russian border.
Officials in the east, the focus of Russia's slow 20-month-old advance, said Ukrainian forces had repelled numerous attacks by Moscow's troops and they anticipated further assaults, particularly around the devastated town of Avdiivka.
Serhiy Popko, head of the Kyiv city military administration, said a Russian ballistic missile was launched toward the capital at about 8 a.m. (0600 GMT).
"After a long pause of 52 days, the enemy has resumed missile attacks on Kyiv," Popko said on the Telegram messaging app. "The missile failed to reach Kyiv, air defenders shot it down as it was approaching the capital."
Popko said there were no casualties or major damage.
Ruslan Kravchenko, regional governor for the central Kyiv region, said five private houses and several commercial buildings in the area were damaged. He said two Russian missiles struck a field between settlements.
Ukraine's air defence also shot down 19 Iranian-made "Shahed" drones out of 31 launched by the Russian forces overnight in southern and eastern regions, the air force said.
Ukrainian intelligence official Andriy Yusov told national television: "This is not the first or the last combined attack." He pointed to increasing numbers of air alerts in recent days.
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UKRAINIAN FLAG IN BORDER VILLAGE
Online video from Kharkiv region showed border guards raising the blue and yellow Ukrainian flag in Topoli village alongside the Russian border, without further explanation. Ukrainian forces a year ago made a lightning push to recapture large swathes of territory in the northeast and since June are engaged in a counteroffensive in the east and south.
Prosecutors in northern Sumy region said two people aboard motorcycles died when Russian forces shelled a road.
In the east, military spokesperson Oleskandr Shtupun said Ukrainian troops had repelled 35 Russian assaults in and near Avdiivka, which has been under intense fire since mid-October.
Shtupun told national television that 70 percent of air strikes in the east and south targeted Avdiivka.
Officials in Avdiivka say they anticipate a new Russian push on the city once the ground dries up from days of heavy rain. Videos show buildings reduced to shells and officials say increasing numbers of the remaining 1,500 residents, from a pre-war population of 32,000, were preparing to evacuate.
In the Black Sea port of Odesa, regional governor Oleh Kiper said the southern region was attacked with missiles and drones on Friday evening and overnight. The strikes wounded three people and damaged port infrastructure facilities, he said without offering further details.
Russia has intensified bombardments of Ukraine's ports, including Odesa, and grain infrastructure since Moscow in July pulled out of a deal to allow for exports from Ukrainian ports.
Russian accounts of the fighting said its forces had struck positions near Bakhmut, a town Moscow captured in May after months of heavy fighting.
Reuters could not verify accounts from either side.
RUSSIAN PERSPECTIVE
No Ukrainian victory in sight – EU’s Borrell
There is no victory in sight for Ukraine in the conflict with Russia, EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said on Saturday. He added that the bloc must be ready to support Kiev for an extended period, and potentially substitute US military aid if it wants to stop Moscow from prevailing.
Delivering a video address to the Congress of the Party of European Socialists (PES) in Malaga, Spain, Borrell declared that the Ukraine conflict “is lasting much too long,” while admitting that Kiev would not be able to face the Russian military without Western support.
EU nations that have “the necessary means to help” should also have the political will to continue to support the bloc’s Ukraine aid policy, and potentially even expand it, Borrell stated. The diplomat also cautioned that the EU may even need to step in to replace US aid, should it diminish.
Although the EU and its members have spent almost twice as much as the US on total military, financial, and humanitarian aid to Ukraine, Washington remains Kiev’s single largest military sponsor by a wide margin, according to Germany’s Kiel Institute for the World Economy.
The US alone has spent around $45 billion on military aid for Ukraine, followed by Germany with $18.2 billion, data showed. However, the Pentagon warned earlier this week that it potentially had only $1 billion remaining for Ukraine military aid, and would have to ration arms packages from now on.
In his address on Saturday, Borrell insisted that “we must remain united and get ready for a longer conflict, longer than Russia thought.” He claimed that Russian President Vladimir Putin had expected to end the conflict in “a few weeks,” but had been unsuccessful.
Moscow reacted to Borrell’s remarks by pointing to his apparent change in tone. Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova noted in a Telegram post that the EU foreign policy chief had declared following a visit to Kiev in April 2022 that “this war will be won on the battlefield.” He now says Ukraine will not be able to defeat Russia in the near future, Zakharova added, wondering if the EU was leaning towards considering Moscow as the victor in the standoff.
Borrell himself, however, said during the PES congress in Malaga that the conflict should be one “that Russia will never be able to win.”
Recent reports have indicated growing concern among Kiev’s Western backers about the outcome of the fighting. On Friday, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg claimed that a Russian victory would be a “tragedy” that would leave the US-led bloc “vulnerable.” He also insisted it was in NATO’s interests to continue supporting Kiev.
** Germany to double military aid to Ukraine — newspaper
The German government intends to increase military aid to Ukraine from 4 billion to 8 billion euros next year, the Bild newspaper reported, citing sources in the country’s Defense Ministry.
According to the sources, the German Finance Ministry had initially earmarked 4 billion euros for military aid to Ukraine in the 2024 state budget, but all of it has already been reserved for current projects, and the Defense Ministry has only 120 million euros left for new projects. The ministry requested an additional 5 billion euros. This week, the government decided to allocate another 4 billion euros. The Bundestag's budget committee will consider the changes next week, the newspaper said.
Bild pointed out that the Defense Ministry also has another 2 billion euros that can be used for long-term defense contracts.
Earlier this month, the German government announced the delivery of another 25 Leopard 1A5 tanks to Ukraine, as previously promised. The new batch of weapons delivered to Kiev also included reconnaissance drones and radars. The total amount of German aid to Ukraine - humanitarian, financial and military - over the past year and a half has amounted to some 24 billion euros.
Reuters/RT/Tass