“Tomorrow the United States will announce a new military aid package for Ukraine.” This was stated by the spokesman for the US National Security Council, John Kirby, specifying that it is primarily “artillery and ammunition for the systems that the Kyiv Armed Forces already have”.
An explosion occurred in Kolomna, a city in Russia in the Moscow Region, 113 km southeast of the capital. Authorities confirmed this after information and images of the incident were shared on social media. “The explosion happened in mid-air. We’re talking about a drone, most likely. But so far it’s impossible to say for sure because they can’t find the wreckage,” police officials from the Tass agency said. A spokesman for the emergency services said “a number of potential facilities were reviewed” and “no signs of an explosion were found”.
Relief efforts in Zaporizhia after the attack
First, the drone strikes up to a hundred kilometers from Moscow, with allegations of US involvement. Now a penetration of “saboteurs” in the Bryansk border region: Russia reports further attacks on its security from Kiev. Two men killed and a child injured is the toll the authorities were demanding for a “terrorist attack” that President Vladimir Putin has described as being carried out by “neo-Nazis” in the service of their Western “masters”. Instead, according to Ukraine’s presidential adviser Mykhailo Podolyak, the whole story is just “a classic provocation” from Moscow. For its part, Kyiv condemned an attack by Russian drones in Bryslav, in the Kherson region, which would have hit civilians waiting in line for humanitarian aid and injured nine. And before that, a night bomb attack on a residential building in Zaporizhia, which killed two people. Volodymyr Zelenskyy called it an “act of terrorism,” echoing Putin’s words. “We will throw out all the occupiers and they will have to answer for everything,” added the Ukrainian president. But in the meantime, Ukraine’s General Staff has admitted that Russian troops are advancing into the Donbass town of Bakhmut, which CNN says appears to be on the verge of surrender. The attacks on Russian territory, according to the governor of the Bryansk region, took place in the villages of Lyubechane, located about fifteen kilometers from each other, and in that of Sushany by a commando of about forty “saboteurs”. At the first location, the attackers opened fire on a Lada Niva SUV, according to Putin, even though they “saw children were on board.” Emergency services said the driver was killed and an 11-year-old boy injured, but managed to get two other younger children on board to safety. A few hours later, Bryansk Governor Alexander Bogomaz said another man had died, but did not specify the circumstances. However, the news originally reported by Russian authorities that two adults and two children had been taken hostage was not confirmed. Only in the evening did the internal security services (FSB) announce that the “Ukrainian nationalists” had been “pushed back into Ukrainian territory”, which Russia had subjected to “massive artillery fire”. Putin has canceled a planned visit to Stavropol in the Caucasus to follow the development of the situation. Those who carried out today’s attacks are “neo-Nazis and terrorists like those who tortured and killed people in Donbass for eight years, like those who murdered Darya Dugina in Moscow”. But “they will not succeed, we will crush them,” he added.
The website of the Russian opposition newspaper Novaya Gazeta reported that the attack was claimed by a Russian far-right militia allied with Ukrainian forces, the Russian Volunteer Corps formed by oligarch Denis Kapustin in August last year. “It’s time for the commoners of Russia to realize they are not slaves, start a rebellion, fight!” a man who introduces himself as a member of the organization says in a video but adds that it does not kill civilians. Meanwhile, the Russians denounce further attacks by Ukrainian drones: one without casualties on the village of Sushany in the same Bryansk region, the other on that of Tetkino in the Kursk border region, with one civilian killed and one wounded. An explosion was then reported in a forest near Tula, about 170 kilometers south of Moscow, where various arms-producing industries are concentrated. According to the governor, it could be a crashed drone. Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said some of Ukraine’s drone strikes, notably those in December against Ryazan and Saratov air bases that killed three Russian soldiers, “would not have been possible without serious United States support, including target selection, deployment.” intelligence and other assistance”.
ANSA agency
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