ODESA, Ukraine: Russian forces killed six people and wounded dozens of others, including two children and a pregnant woman, in attacks on Ukraine’s energy facilities, Kyiv announced Tuesday.
President Volodymyr Zelensky said the latest bombardment undermined peace efforts and urged allies to step up pressure on Moscow to end the war, which is grinding toward its fourth anniversary.
“Every such Russian strike erodes the diplomacy that is still ongoing and undermines the efforts of partners who are helping to end this war,” he wrote on social media.
A Russian drone barrage killed two people whose bodies were retrieved from rubble and wounded nearly three dozen people in the southern city of Odesa, regional officials said.
The Black Sea city key for Ukrainian exports has been pummelled routinely by Russian forces since they invaded Ukraine nearly four years ago.
Ukrainian private energy firm DTEK said Russian forces had inflicted “enormous” damage on one of its facilities in the Odesa region that would take time to repair.
The governor Oleg Kiper said Russia had launched more than 50 attack drones on the region, damaging dozens of residential buildings, a church and schools.
An AFP journalist on the scene saw rescue workers digging for survivors in the debris at a residential building.
The attack wounded at least 32 people, including two girls and a woman 39 weeks pregnant, he said.
A married couple aged 45 and 48 were killed in Sloviansk in the eastern Donetsk region, a key prize for the Kremlin, which has concentrated its firepower there.
Their 20-year-old son survived the attack in the region that the Kremlin claims to have annexed, local prosecutors said.
In a separate drone attack in the southern region of Zaporizhzhia, a 58-year-old was killed in their home. A 72-year was also killed in her home by Russian shelling in the southern Kherson region.
Russian drone and missile attacks have recently knocked out power, lighting and heat to millions of Ukrainians across the country.
The Ukrainian air force said Russia had launched 165 attack drones overnight, and Ukrainian officials said an infrastructure facility in the western Lviv region was hit.
State gas company Naftogaz said the attack had left one of its facilities on fire in western Ukraine, describing it as the fifth attack of its kind this month.
Russian forces meanwhile are advancing across the front. The Russian defense ministry announced on Tuesday it had captured two more villages in the eastern Ukrainian regions of Zaporizhzhia and Kharkiv.
Russia kills 6 in Ukraine, hits energy sites
https://arab.news/gr4xf
Russia kills 6 in Ukraine, hits energy sites
- Zelensky said the latest bombardment undermined peace efforts and urged allies to step up pressure on Moscow
- A Russian drone barrage killed two people whose bodies were retrieved from rubble
Kyrgyzstan parliament speaker resigns after spy chief sacking
- Japarov is seeking re-election next year in a country that was once a regional leader in terms of openness
BISHKEK: Kyrgyzstan’s parliament speaker said Thursday he would step down, two days after President Sadyr Japarov dismissed the Central Asian country’s powerful secret service chief and arrested political figures who called for early elections.
In a surprise move, Japarov had sacked his one-time close ally — spy chief Kamchybek Tashiev — in a decision Bishkek said was meant to “prevent division in society.”
Japarov is seeking re-election next year in a country that was once a regional leader in terms of openness, though marked by political volatility.
Rights groups have accused him of authoritarian tendencies, as he seeks to assert his control and cast himself as a bringer of stability.
Speaker Nurlanbek Turgunbek uulu — close to the sacked security boss — told MPs he would step down, insisting that he was not resigning under pressure.
“Reforms initiated by the president must be carried out. Political stability is indispensable,” he said.
Kyrgyzstan has in recent years been de-facto governed by the Japarov-Tashiev tandem.
Both came to power in the wake of the 2020 revolution — the third since Bishkek gained independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
Several NGOs have in recent months denounced the deterioration of freedom of expression in Kyrgyzstan.
Japarov had unexpectedly sacked Tashiev and three of his deputies on Tuesday, also weakening the powers of the secret services.
Japarov rarely speaks publicly. His spokesman had said the decision was taken “in the interests of the state, with the aim of preventing divisions within society, including between government structures, and to strengthen unity.”
Tashiev was in Germany for health treatment when the sacking was announced and had said it was a “total surprise” to him.
The decision came the day after the publication of an open letter from 75 political figures and ex-officials calling to bring forward presidential elections — scheduled for January 2027.
Five of those who signed the letter — which criticized the economic situation in the country — were arrested Wednesday on charges of organizing mass riots.
