Dec 7 (Reuters) – Russia’s third airport has been set ablaze by drone strikes after Ukraine demonstrated an apparent new ability to reach within hundreds of kilometers of Russia by striking two air bases.
Officials in the Russian city of Kursk, about 90 kilometers (60 miles) north of the Ukrainian border, released photos of black smoke billowing above the airport after the latest airstrike on Tuesday. A fuel storage tank caught fire, but there were no injuries, the governor said.
On Monday, Russia said it was hit by what it said was a Soviet-era drone hundreds of kilometers from Ukraine – at the Engels air base, home to Russia’s fleet of strategic bombers, and in Ryazan, a few hours’ drive from Moscow. .
Ukraine did not directly claim responsibility for the airstrike, but celebrated it nonetheless.
Russia’s state-run news agency quoted the first deputy representative of the local administration as saying that an alarm sounded at Engels airport late Tuesday.
In Washington, U.S. Secretary of State Anthony Blinken reiterated his country’s determination to provide Ukraine with the equipment it needs to defend itself, while saying the United States had neither encouraged nor allowed Ukrainians to carry out attacks inside Russia.
U.S. lawmakers agreed to provide at least $800 million in additional security aid to Ukraine next year.
The Russian Ministry of Defense said three servicemen were killed in the attack in Ryazan. Although the attacks hit military targets, it characterized them as terrorism and said they were aimed at disabling its long-range aircraft.
Ukraine has never publicly acknowledged responsibility for the attack on Russian soil. Asked about the strike, Defense Minister Oleskiy Reznikov repeated a long-running joke blaming cigarettes for carelessness. “Russians often smoke in places where smoking is prohibited,” he said.
Neighboring Belarus, a close ally of Russia, plans to mobilize military equipment and troops on Wednesday and Thursday to check its response to terrorism, the Belarusian state news agency reported, adding that the replica weapons would be used for training.
Ukraine has expressed concern for months that Belarus and Russia may be planning a joint invasion of Ukraine’s northern border, although Belarus has said it will not join the war.
“Leverage and Control”
At least 20 tankers lined up in Turkey face more delays as they sail from Russia’s Black Sea port to the Mediterranean, industry sources said, as operators race to comply with new Turkish insurance that was added ahead of a G7 price cap on Russian oil. rule.
A group official said the disruption to tanker traffic was not the result of an agreement between the G7 nations and the Australian coalition to cap Russian oil prices.
The price cap of $60 a barrel imposed on Monday is higher than the current price of Urals crude from Russia, the world’s second-largest oil exporter.
A U.S. Treasury Department official told Reuters that the G7 countries and Australia will be busy in the coming weeks to determine two other price cap levels for Russian refined petroleum products that are set to be implemented on Feb. 5.
“I think the point is that now that we’ve been able to set the cap at $60, we have all the leverage and control,” the official said. “Any adjustment is in the interest of the G7, it is in the interest of Ukraine, it is in the interest of the world economy, it is not in the interest of Russia.”
Zelensky and the Army
Russian forces continued to shell towns and villages on battlefields in eastern, northeastern and southern Ukraine, the Ukrainian military said late on Tuesday.
Russia’s appointed mayor, Alexander Kulemzin, reported on his Telegram channel that Donetsk came under rocket and artillery fire, killing six people.
“Look what they’ve done,” said a resident named Irina, pointing to the destroyed building where her apartment was. “The people who live there… go to the fields and kill each other there, not here.”
Dmytro Zhyvytsky, the governor of the Sumy region, which borders Russia, said Russian troops fired 226 shells into seven neighborhoods that day, wounding many.
War crimes investigators are investigating the deaths of hundreds of civilians since the nearly 10-month conflict began. Russia has denied targeting civilians in a so-called special operation to rid Ukraine of dangerous nationalists.
On Tuesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky inspected troops close to Ukraine’s eastern front.
Speaking to troops later in Kyiv, Zelensky said he had spent the day with troops in the Donbass and Kharkov regions, the fiercest battlegrounds, where the Ukrainians had retaken swathes of the country from Russian troops. territory.
“Thousands of Ukrainians have given their lives so that one day not a single soldier of the occupying army will remain on our land and all our people will be free,” Zelensky said wearing his logo Sexy khaki green outfits, said the rallygoers.
Reporting by Reuters; Writing by Grant McCool and Lincoln Feast; Editing by Cynthia Osterman and Robert Birsel
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