Ukraine: Russia Attacks Kyiv with Drones | WPN World People News

Ukrainian officials said Wednesday a Russian attack on Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, with Iranian-made drones damaged two administrative buildings.

Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko reported explosions in the Shevchenkivsky district in central Kyiv. It was not immediately clear if there were any casualties.

Ukraine’s military said its air defenses shot down 13 Shahed drones, the same type Russia has used to crash into targets in widespread attacks on multiple Ukrainian cities.

“Another massive drone attack on Kyiv. It is obvious that the Russian military feels confident only when attacking peaceful cities,” the Ukrainian Defense Ministry tweeted.

The European Union added sanctions against Iran this week for its role in developing and supplying drones that Russia is using in its war in Ukraine.

Prisoner swap

The head of Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy’s office said Ukraine and Russia carried out a prisoner swap that included 64 Ukrainian soldiers who had fought in the eastern Donetsk and Luhansk regions.

Andriy Yermak tweeted that the swap included one U.S. citizen, Suedi Murekezi.

The New York Times and The Washington Post reported in July that Murekezi was a U.S. Air Force veteran who moved to Ukraine four years ago. Pro-Russian forces detained him in June in the southern Ukrainian city of Kherson and Murekezi’s brother said he was falsely accused of participating in pro-Ukrainian protests.

Environmental impact

Earlier Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy urged New Zealand to play a role in building support for a peace plan that includes a focus on the environmental impacts of Russia’s 10-month-old war on Ukraine.

Zelenskyy delivered a video address to New Zealand’s parliament, telling lawmakers that Russian attacks have polluted rivers, flooded coal mines and destroyed chemical sites. He said 174,000 square kilometers of Ukrainian territory are contaminated with mines and unexploded ordnance.

“The destroyed economy and infrastructure can be rebuilt. It takes years,” Zelenskyy said. “But you cannot rebuild destroyed nature. Just as you cannot restore destroyed life.”

In his nightly video address to Ukrainians late Tuesday, Zelenskyy thanked those who have supported his country after two conferences that yielded pledges of more than $1 billion in aid from about 70 countries and institutions.

The aid will help Ukraine repair infrastructure battered by Russian airstrikes that in recent weeks have cut power and water supplies for millions of Ukrainians. About $400 million will specifically go toward the country’s energy sector.

“We cannot leave them [Ukrainians] alone faced with winter, faced with their aggressor, which is seeking to inflict difficulties on them,” French Foreign Minister Catherine Colonna told reporters after the meetings in Paris.

Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal told reporters that the new aid “is a very powerful signal. It shows that the whole of the civilized world is supporting Ukraine.”

The conference followed a pledge Monday from the leaders of the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations to meet Ukraine’s urgent requirements for military and defense equipment.

Source: Voice of America