Ukraine and the Moscow region targeted by drone attacks on an unprecedented scale | War in Ukraine

Drone attacks on an unprecedented scale targeted Ukraine and the region of the Russian capital, Moscow, during the night from Saturday to Sunday, both camps denounced.

While the conflict between kyiv and Moscow still rages, the Kremlin has said it sees positive signals coming from the American president-elect, Donald Trump.

The signals are positive. Trump, during his election campaign, said he saw all this [le conflit en Ukraine, NDLR] by agreements. And that he could get a deal leading to peacesaid the spokesperson for the Russian presidency, Dmitri Peskov, in an interview broadcast on Sunday.

Il [Donald Trump] speaks of peace, not of confrontation, not of the desire to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, which favorably distinguishes him from the current administration.

According to Mr. Peskov, it remains to be seen whether Mr. Trump will stick to his statements countryside.

With Donald Trump’s victory on Tuesday in the American presidential election, the question arises of the sustainability of support from the United States, which has enabled Ukraine to resist Russian troops since February 2022.

The billionaire has repeatedly promised to quickly find a solution to this devastating conflict, without explaining how he would do so.

145 drones targeted Ukraine, according to Zelensky

In the meantime, the fighting continues.

The Russian Defense Ministry said it had neutralized 34 drones in the Moscow region this morning, a record number in the area of ​​the Russian capital since the start of the conflict between Russia and Ukraine in 2022.

According to this source, 36 other Ukrainian drones were shot down in two regions bordering Moscow and in three others bordering Ukraine.

The governor of the Moscow region, Andrei Vorobiov, said that the interceptions took place in particular over the towns of Ramenskoye and Domodedovo, about forty kilometers southeast of the center of Moscow and close to airports.

According to him, a 52-year-old woman was injured by shrapnel, burned to the face, neck and hands, and two houses were set on fire.

This operation in the suburbs of Moscow comes four days after a massive Russian drone attack on the Ukrainian capital, targeted almost daily for a month.

During the night from Saturday to Sunday, a new attack record of 145 Russian drones targeted Ukraine, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky denounced on X.

Open in full screen mode

In a statement, the Ukrainian Air Force mentioned that as of 9:30 a.m., of these 145 drones, 62 had been neutralized over 13 regions of the country.

For the moment, the Ukrainian authorities have not mentioned possible victims or claimed responsibility for the drone strikes targeting Moscow.

kyiv says it is carrying out its attacks on Russia, usually mainly targeting energy sites, in response to the deadly Russian bombings which have destroyed its infrastructure and devastated its cities since Vladimir Putin launched the assault on Ukraine in February 2022. .

On the verge of exhaustion

On the front, Ukrainian troops are becoming exhausted, suffering from their inferiority in weapons and personnel, and retreating in multiple sectors in eastern Ukraine, where Russian troops have been advancing more rapidly in recent weeks.

Russia claimed on Sunday the conquest of a new village, that of Volchansk, in the Ukrainian region of Donetsk (east).

This locality is located approximately 5 km from Kourakhové, an industrial city which had 18,000 inhabitants before the conflict and near which there is a large deposit of lithium, a rare mineral.

Open in full screen mode

Furthermore, thousands of North Korean soldiers are, according to kyiv and the West, deployed in the Russian region of Kursk, where the Ukrainian army has controlled a few hundred square kilometers since its surprise operation launched on August 6. kyiv assures that they have already been engaged in combat.

The West, however, refuses to authorize kyiv to strike deep into Russian territory with the weapons it supplies and to shoot down Russian missiles targeting Ukrainian cities, for fear that this would lead to an escalation.

Volodymyr Zelensky retorts that Moscow is already escalating. He rejected Thursday the idea of ​​discussing a ceasefire with Russia or making any concessionafter Moscow had ordered the West to negotiate under penalty of destruction of the Ukrainian population.

Putin signs mutual defense agreement with North Korea

The Russian president also signed the mutual defense treaty with North Korea on Saturday, concluded during a rare visit by Vladimir Putin to Pyongyang in June.

This treaty between two black beasts of the United States provides in particular immediate military aid reciprocal in the event of an attack against one of the two countries.

The Upper House of the Russian Parliament ratified this treaty on November 8, which still had to be signed by the Russian president to enter into force.

The Kremlin published the law ratifying the treaty on its website on Saturday evening.

The agreement formalizes months of deepening security cooperation between the two countries, communist allies throughout the Cold War.

Open in full screen mode

Russia and North Korea have grown significantly closer since Russia’s attack on Ukraine began.

The agreement also commits the two countries to cooperate internationally to oppose Western sanctions and coordinate their positions at the United Nations.

President Putin described the agreement in June as revolutionary document.

Asked publicly about this deployment of North Korean soldiers last October, the Russian president did not deny it, instead deflecting the question to criticize the West’s support for Ukraine.