Russia and Ukraine each reported dozens of attempted drone attacks in the past day, just hours after Hungary vetoed €50 billion of EU funding to Ukraine.
Ukraine’s air force said on Saturday that Ukrainian air defences had shot down 30 out of 31 drones launched overnight against 11 regions of the country.
Russia said on Friday evening that it had thwarted a series of Ukrainian drone attacks.
Russian anti-aircraft units destroyed 32 Ukrainian drones over the Crimean peninsula, the Russian ministry of defence said on Telegram.
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Russia annexed the peninsula from Ukraine in 2014, a move that most of the world considered illegal, and has used it as a staging and supply point during the war.
Earlier, Russia’s ministry for defence said that six drones had been shot down in the Kursk region, which borders Ukraine.
In Ukraine’s partially occupied southern Kherson region, Russian-installed governor Vladimir Saldo reported on Telegram that Russian anti-aircraft units had downed at least 15 aerial targets near the town of Henichesk.
Meanwhile, shelling wounded two people in Ukrainian-held parts of the Kherson region, regional governor Oleksandr Prokudin said on Saturday.
Stepped-up drone attacks over the past month come as both sides are keen to show they are not deadlocked as the war approaches two years’ duration.
Neither side has gained much ground despite a Ukrainian counteroffensive that began in June, and analysts predict the war will be a long one.
On Friday, EU leaders sought to paper over their inability to boost Ukraine’s coffers with a promised €50 billion over the next four years, saying the cheque will likely arrive next month after some more haggling between the other 26 leaders and the long-time holdout, prime Minister Viktor Orban of Hungary.
Instead, they wanted Ukraine to revel in getting the nod to start membership talks that could mark a sea change in its fortunes – although the process could last well over a decade and be strewn with obstacles placed by any single member state.
Meanwhile, Vladimir Putin will run for president again as an independent candidate with a wide support base but not on a party ticket, Russian news agencies reported on Saturday, citing his supporters.
An initiative group made up of more than 700 politicians and figures from the sporting and cultural worlds met on Saturday in Moscow and unanimously endorsed Putin’s nomination as an independent candidate, Russian news agencies said.
Putin, who has been in power as either president or prime minister for more than two decades, has announced he will seek another six-year term in March next year in an election he is comfortably expected to win.
Putin will not run as a candidate for the ruling United Russia (UR) party even though he has its complete support but as an independent candidate, Andrei Turchak, a senior UR party official, was cited as saying by the RIA news agency.
“More than 3.5 million party members and supporters will actively take part in the election campaign,” RIA quoted Turchak as saying, noting that Putin had been one of the founders of United Russia.
Sergei Mironov, a senior politician from the Just Russia party who supports Putin, was also quoted by RIA as saying Putin would run as an independent and that signatures would be gathered in his support.
For Putin (71) the election is a formality: with the support of the state, the state-run media and almost no mainstream public dissent, he is certain to win.
Supporters of Putin say he has restored order, national pride, and some of the clout Russia lost during the chaos of the Soviet collapse and that his war in Ukraine – something Putin calls a “special military operation” – is justified.
A years-long crackdown on opponents and critics bolstered by sweeping new laws on “fake news” and “discrediting the army” has seen critics and opponents of the war handed long jail terms or flee abroad as the room for dissent has steadily shrunk.– AP