KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — After a relative lull, Russia launched a drone attack on the Ukrainian capital, Kyiv, on Sunday morning, officials said. It was the first such attack in the war in 12 days.
All Iranian-made Shahed explosive drones have been detected and shot down, according to Serhii Popko, the head of Kyiv city administration. In addition to the city itself, the surrounding Kyiv region was targeted. Kyiv Regional Governor Ruslan Kravchenko reported that one person was injured by falling debris from a destroyed drone.
Officials in the Ukrainian capital did not provide the exact number of drones that attacked the city. But the Ukrainian Air Force said across the country eight Shahed and three Kalibr cruise missiles were launched by the Russians.
Further south, a 13-year-old boy was injured in the nighttime shelling of the partially occupied province of Kherson in southern Ukraine, said Oleksandr Tolokonnikov, spokesman for the Ukrainian administration in the province.
The child was injured when the Russian army shelled the village of Mylove on the banks of the Dnieper in the Beryslav district, Tolokonnikov said.
“The child has been hospitalized, there is no threat to his life,” Tolokonnikov added,” he told state television.
The shelling of Kherson province continued on Sunday morning, leaving four injured in the regional capital, also called Kherson. The regional prosecutor’s office said a residential area of the city was targeted by Russian troops operating in the Russian-occupied part of Kherson province. “
“At least four citizens were injured, two of them due to a targeted strike on a high-rise building,” the office wrote on Telegram.
Meanwhile, the Ukrainian military reported the heaviest fighting continued in industrial eastern Ukraine, with attacks concentrated around Bakhmut, Marinka and Lyman in Donetsk province, where 46 clashes took place. place.
Ukrainian forces were advancing amid a “massive offensive” on the southern and northern flanks of the destroyed city of Bakhmut, spokesman for the Group of Eastern Forces of Ukraine Serhii Cherevaty told Ukraine television. Ukrainian state. But he did not mention the progress they have made. Details, he said, would be released once Ukrainian forces had analyzed the situation and consolidated their positions.
In its regular Sunday morning update, the General Staff said that in the past 24 hours Russia had carried out 27 airstrikes, one missile strike and around 80 attacks from multiple rocket launchers. , targeting parts of the north, northeast, east and south of the country.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy visited the Black Sea port city of Odessa on Sunday – the day the country honors its navy – to hear a report from the navy commander, discuss prospects for developing a program drones and naval missiles, as well as giving awards to service members.
In Russia, local officials reported that air defense systems shot down a drone over the Belgorod region, which borders Ukraine, while the neighboring Kursk region faced bombardment. No casualties or damage were reported.
Following the drama of Wagnerian leader Yevgeny Prigozhin’s rebellion last week, Russian authorities remained defiant. Vyacheslav Volodin, speaker of Russia’s lower house of parliament, the State Duma, said on Sunday that Russian President Vladimir Putin had emerged from the situation “having further strengthened his position both in the country and in the world”.
Russian society, he said, “having passed this test, has shown its maturity.” According to Volodin, there was “not a single example of someone supporting the rebellion”.
But General Sergei Surovikin, deputy commander of the group of Russian forces fighting in Ukraine, was reportedly arrested a few days after the mutiny. It is unclear whether Surovikin, who has long-standing ties to Prigozhin, faces charges or where he is being held, reflecting the opaque world of Kremlin politics and uncertainty following the uprising.
Writing on Telegram, Volodin said the Russian president “did everything to prevent bloodshed and confusion”, including explaining to Wagner’s fighters “the real situation”. “(Putin) suggested that those who want to defend Russia continue their service with arms drawn. As far as I know, many of them accepted this,” Volodin said.
Furthermore, the State Duma speaker said he had analyzed the “challenges” that Russia had faced in the past, saying that if “someone like Putin” had led the country in 1917 and 1991, there would have been no revolution. in Russia, and the USSR would not have collapsed.
But independent observers and analysts say Putin could emerge politically weakened after first announcing Wagner would face harsh repercussions, only to later say the group’s forces would not be prosecuted. Prigozhin was also allowed to leave Russia for Belarus.
Polish Interior Minister Mariusz Kaminski said on Sunday that Poland would send 500 police to join 5,000 border guards and 2,000 soldiers already on the country’s border with Belarus. This follows an announcement earlier this week that Poland would strengthen defenses on its eastern border following the transfer of Wagner’s fighters to Belarus.
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