Ukraine staged a serious drone assault on the Russian metropolis of Kazan, 1,000km (620 miles) from the frontline, on Saturday, damaging residential buildings and briefly shutting down the airport. A drone smashed right into a high-rise house block and broken a skyscraper within the metropolis of greater than 1.3 million however there have been no casualties, native officers mentioned. Movies posted on Russian social media networks confirmed drones hitting a high-rise constructing and setting off fireballs. Overseas ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova mentioned two drones hit a 37-storey house block and that Ukraine had been concentrating on an unspecified industrial facility however that it suffered no injury.
Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, mentioned on Saturday with out particularly mentioning the strike on Kazan: “We will certainly proceed to strike at Russian navy targets with drones and missiles.” Some Kazan residents have been evacuated – Russian authorities didn’t present figures – and all main public occasions within the space have been cancelled as a precaution after the strikes. Russian civil aviation authority Rosaviatsia briefly closed Kazan worldwide airport, one of many nation’s busiest, however reopened it afterward Saturday. Alongside the drones that hit the house block, three drones have been shot down and three have been suppressed by air defence techniques, the international ministry mentioned. The assault on Kazan – about 800km east of Moscow – got here a day after Russian strikes on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, killed one individual and wounded 13, and after 5 have been killed by a Ukrainian assault on the Russian border area of Kursk.
Zelenskyy mentioned on Saturday that he had met the CIA director, William Burns in Ukraine – a uncommon public disclosure of a gathering between the pair. The Ukrainian president mentioned he had met Burns on a number of events all through the struggle however their conferences had been undisclosed. “Invoice Burns paid his final go to to Ukraine as CIA director,” Zelenskyy mentioned on Telegram, posting a photograph of him shaking palms with Burns in entrance of a state crest of Ukraine. “He and I’ve had many conferences throughout this struggle, and I’m grateful for his assist. Normally, such conferences will not be publicly reported, and all our conferences – in Ukraine, in different European international locations, in America, and in different elements of the world – have been held with out official data.” Burns is about to go away the CIA put up as US president-elect Donald Trump brings in his personal candidate.
Russia’s defence ministry mentioned the military captured a brand new village on Saturday close to the important thing metropolis of Kurakhove in japanese Ukraine, the place Russian forces have made main advances in current months. The village of Kostiantynopolske is about 10km south-west of Kurakhove, an industrial city that could be a looming Russian goal.
The Russian embassy in London on Saturday described the UK’s deliberate switch to Ukraine of greater than £2bn ($2.5bn) backed by frozen Russian belongings as a “fraudulent scheme”. Britain mentioned in October it might lend Ukraine £2.26bn kilos as a part of a a lot bigger mortgage from the Group of Seven nations backed by frozen Russian central financial institution belongings to assist purchase weapons and rebuild broken infrastructure. The UK defence minister, John Healey, mentioned the cash can be solely for Ukraine’s navy and might be used to assist develop drones able to travelling additional than some long-range missiles.
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