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Moscow’s mayor says around 180 drones heading for the Russian capital alone have been downed so far
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Volodymyr Zelensky has said that “Moscow will burn” if attacks continue after Ukraine launched a heavy drone strike on Russia in retaliation for damage done to a historic monastery in Kyiv this week.
Hundreds of drones targeted Moscow overnight, hitting the Russian capital’s oil refinery for the second time this week, in one of the biggest aerial assaults on Russia of the war so far.
The Ukrainian president said: “We don’t want this war, we never did, and everyone knows it, and our partners know it,” Zelenskiy said in a voice message sent to reporters on a WhatsApp group. “But if Ukraine burns, your Moscow will burn.”
It comes after at least 10 people were killed on Monday across Ukraine in a drone and missile attack that damaged the 1,000-year-old Kyiv Pechersk Lavra monastery.
Moscow’s mayor Sergei Sobhyanin said around 180 drones heading for the capital alone had been downed on Thursday. Hours earlier, Trump said that Vladimir Putin needs the war in Ukraine to end as Moscow is losing more troops than Kyiv.
The U.S. Department of War is open to Poland’s offer to host permanent U.S. military presence in Poland, Polish Defence Minister Wladyslaw Kosiniak-Kamysz said on Thursday after meeting U.S. Secretary of War Pete Hegseth in Brussels.
Speaking to the media following a Nato alliance meeting in Brussels, secretary-general Mark Rutte said allies are confirming plans to meet their increased defence spending target of 5 per cent of GDP by 2035.
“Some allies will already get there this year, way ahead of schedule,” he said.
He said the US, through attending Pentagon chief Pete Hegseth, “expressed strong commitment to Nato very clear today”.
He says there is “broad agreement” between allies to “step up” their role as the US revises its commitments.
Russia’s anti-monopoly watchdog on Thursday asked a major petrol retailer in Moscow for an explanation after it hiked prices for 95-octane petrol by 19 per cent in the last week.
FAS, the watchdog, sent the demand to Neftemagistral, a company which runs around 100 petrol stations in the Moscow region and in the capital itself.
The price hike followed Ukrainian drone attacks on a Moscow oil refinery, which supplies the Moscow region with fuel.
Russia and Ukraine carried out another exchange of war dead on Thursday, with Moscow receiving 33 bodies and Ukraine receiving 522 bodies, Russia’s RBC news outlet reported, citing a Russian lawmaker.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Thursday heavy drone attacks on Russia were retaliation for a strike that damaged a historic monastery in Kyiv this week, and that “Moscow will burn” if attacks continue.
Scores of drones targeted Moscow overnight, hitting the Russian capital’s oil refinery for the second time this week.
“We don’t want this war, we never did, and everyone knows it, and our partners know it,” Zelensky said in a voice message sent to reporters on a WhatsApp group. “But if Ukraine burns, your Moscow will burn.”
At least 10 people were killed on Monday across Ukraine in a drone and missile attack that damaged the 1,000-year-old Kyiv Pechersk Lavra monastery.
Russia launched seven missiles and 239 drones at Ukraine in an overnight attack, Ukraine’s air forces reported.
Forces were able to down or suppress 216 targets – including four missiles and 212 drones.
Missiles came from the Voronezh, Bryansk and Kursk regions. Drones were fired from Kursk, Orel, and Primorsko-Akhtarsk, as well as the Russian occupied Crimea and Donetsk regions.
A suspect has been detained by authorities after a Russian artist who was critical of President Vladimir Putin was shot dead, the Polish prime minister has confirmed.
Donald Tusk said that the suspect, using a Georgian passport, had been detained by Lublin police and the internal security agency as services work to “establish the mastermind”.
He warned on Wednesday that the killing had all the hallmarks of a political assassination.
Robert Kuzovkov, known by the pseudonym Semyon Skrepetsky, was shot and killed at close range near his home in the eastern Polish city of Biala Podlaska on Monday.
Emmanuel Macron has said that president Donald Trump “took notice” of the fact that Russia was not seeking peace.
Speaking at a press conference at the G7 summit, the French president said Washington acknowledged that Moscow was not looking to end its war in Ukraine.
He said the G7 had “showed a real change in the approach from the US on Ukraine”.
Trump had earlier suggested that the US could impose sanctions on Russia if it did not take steps to end the war.
Ukraine’s latest attacks on Russia are pushing back the prospect of any direct contacts between President Vladimir Putin and his Ukrainian counterpart Volodymyr Zelensky, Kremlin aide Yuri Ushakov said on Thursday, the Interfax news agency reported.
Ushakov made his remarks after Moscow bore the brunt of one of the largest Ukrainian aerial assaults of the war so far.
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