Latest news on Russia and the war in Ukraine
Russia says it thwarted another Ukrainian drone attack
A building of the Moscow International Business Center, Moskva City, damaged after a drone attack on Aug. 23, 2023.
Natalia Kolesnikova | Afp | Getty Images
Russia’s Defense Ministry on Wednesday thwarted an overnight Ukrainian drone attack on Moscow, downing three drones, the city’s mayor Sergei Sobyanin said.
No casualties and only minor damage were reported in the sixth consecutive day of similar reported incidents on the capital.
“This night, air defense shot down a drone in the Mozhaisk district of the Moscow region. The second UAV hit a building under construction in the City. Emergency services were dispatched to the scene of the incident. According to preliminary information, there were no casualties,” Sobyanin wrote on the Telegram messaging app.
The Defense Ministry said air defense forces had shot down two of the three drones over the wider Moscow region’s Mozhaisky and Khimki districts.
A third drone, which was brought down using electronic warfare equipment, lost control and crashed into a high-rise building under construction in the Moscow City business district, the ministry said.
Ukraine did not immediately claim responsibility for the attacks.
— Karen Gilchrist
Russian drone strike hits Danube region, Ukraine’s military says
An overnight Russian drone attack on Ukraine’s southern Odesa and Danube regions caused fires in a number of grain facilities, Ukraine’s military and local authorities said Wednesday.
“The enemy hit grain storage facilities and a production and transshipment complex in Danube region. A fire broke out in the warehouses and was quickly contained. Firefighters continue to work,” the military said on the Telegram messaging app, according to a Reuters translation.
The strikes were the latest in a recent string of attacks targeting port infrastructure on the Danube following the decision by Moscow last month to quit a U.N.-brokered deal to ensure the safe passage of grain from the Black Sea.
Odesa’s governor said the attack on the region lasted for three hours and the Ukrainian air force had destroyed nine Russian drones.
“Unfortunately, there were hits to the production and transhipment complexes where a fire broke out. The damage includes grain storage facilities,” Oleh Kiper said on Telegram.
— Karen Gilchrist
Putin tells BRICS summit that Russia will be a ‘responsible supplier’ of food to Africa
Vladimir Putin, Russia’s president, speaks by video link during the BRICS business forum on the opening day of the BRICS summit at the Sandton Convention Centre in the Sandton district of Johannesburg, South Africa, on Aug. 22, 2023.
Bloomberg | Getty Images
Russian President Vladimir Putin said Tuesday that his country would remain a “responsible supplier” of food and grain to African countries in a recorded address to a summit of the BRICS countries in South Africa.
He said that Moscow, which last month withdrew from a U.N.-brokered deal to ensure the safe passage of Black Sea grain exports, could take Ukraine’s place as an international supplier of grain.
Separately, Putin also said that the U.S. dollars in trade between Brics nations was decreasing, as the countries moved towards national currencies and away from dollars in what he called an “irreversible process of de-dollarisation”.