KYIV: Russian missile and drone attacks on Ukraine overnight into Saturday killed at least four people and wounded 17 others, local officials said.
In the capital, Kyiv, one person was killed and ten wounded in a ballistic missile attack in the early hours of Saturday, Timur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv’s city military administration, said. Three of the wounded were hospitalized, according to Ukraine’s State Emergency Service.
A fire broke out in a non-residential building in one location, while debris from intercepted missiles fell in an open area at another site, damaging windows in nearby buildings, the emergency service wrote on Telegram.
“Explosions in the capital. The city is under ballistic attack,” Mayor Vitali Klitschko wrote on Telegram during the onslaught.
In the Dnipropetrovsk region, two people were killed and seven wounded, acting regional Gov. Vladyslav Haivanenko said, adding that apartment buildings, private homes, an outbuilding, a shop and at least one vehicle were damaged in the strikes.
Ukraine’s Air Force said Russia launched nine missiles and 62 drones, of which air defenses intercepted four missiles and 50 drones.
In Russia, the country’s defense ministry said its air defenses shot down 121 Ukrainian drones over Russia overnight.
The attacks came after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky urged the United States on Friday to expand sanctions on Russian oil from two companies to the whole sector, and appealed for long-range missiles to hit back at Russia.
Zelensky was in London for talks with two dozen European leaders who have pledged military help to shield his country from future Russian aggression if a ceasefire stops the more than three-year war.
The meeting hosted by British Prime Minister Keir Starmer aimed to step up pressure on Russian President Vladimir Putin, adding momentum to recent measures that have included a new round of sanctions from the United States and European countries on Russia’s vital oil and gas export earnings.
The talks also addressed ways of helping protect Ukraine’s power grid from Russia’s almost daily drone and missile attacks as winter approaches, enhancing Ukrainian air defenses, and supplying Kyiv with longer-range missiles that can strike deep inside Russia. Zelensky has urged the US to send Tomahawk missiles, an idea US President Donald Trump has flirted with.
Russian strikes on Ukraine kill at least 4 people and wound 17
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Russian strikes on Ukraine kill at least 4 people and wound 17
- Russian drone and missile strikes killed at least two people and wounded more than a dozen in multiple regions of Ukraine, authorities said Saturday
Ethiopia’s prime minister accuses Eritrea of mass killings during Tigray war
- Landlocked Ethiopia says that Eritrea is arming rebel groups, while Eritrea says Ethiopia’s aspiration is to gain access to a seaport
- Ethiopia lost sovereign access to the Red Sea when Eritrea seceded in 1993 after decades of guerrilla warfare
ADDIS ABABA: Ethiopia’s government Tuesday for the first time acknowledged the involvement of troops from neighboring Eritrea in the war in the Tigray region that ended in 2022, accusing them of mass killings, amid reports of renewed fighting in the region.
Ethiopian Prime Minister Abiy Ahmed, while addressing parliament Tuesday, accused Eritrean troops fighting alongside Ethiopian forces of mass killings in the war, during which more than 400,000 people are estimated to have died.
Eritrean and Ethiopian troops fought against regional forces in the northern Tigray region in a war that ended in 2022 with the signing of a peace agreement.
Eritrea’s Information Minister Yemane Gebremeskel told The Associated Press that Ahmed’s comments were “cheap and despicable lies” and did not merit a response.
Both nations have been accusing each other of provoking a potential civil war, with landlocked Ethiopia saying that Eritrea is arming and funding rebel groups, while Eritrea says Ethiopia’s aspiration is to gain access to a seaport.
“The rift did not begin with the Red Sea issue, as many people think,” Ahmed told parliamentarians. “It started in the first round of the war in Tigray, when the Eritrean army followed us into Shire and began demolishing houses, massacred our youth in Axum, looted factories in Adwa, and uprooted our factories.”
“The Red Sea and Ethiopia cannot remain separated forever,” he added.
Ethiopia lost sovereign access to the Red Sea when Eritrea seceded in 1993 after decades of guerrilla warfare.
Gebremeskel said the prime minister has only recently changed his tune in his push for access to the Red Sea.
Ahmed “and his top military brass were profusely showering praises and State Medals on the Eritrea army and its senior officers. … But when he later developed the delusional malaise of ‘sovereignty access to the sea’ and an agenda of war against Eritrea, he began to sing to a different chorus,” he said.
Eritrea and Ethiopia initially made peace after Abiy came to power in 2018, with Abiy winning a Nobel Peace Prize for his efforts toward reconciliation.
In June, Eritrea accused Ethiopia of having a “long-brewing war agenda” aimed at seizing its Red Sea ports. Ethiopia recently said that Eritrea was “actively preparing to wage war against it.”
Analysts say an alliance between Eritrea and regional forces in the troubled Tigray region may be forming, as fighting has been reported in recent weeks. Flights by the national carrier to the region were canceled last week over the renewed clashes.
