🔴Live: US says it doesn’t ‘encourage’ strikes in Russia, after reports of downed drones

Issued on: 23/08/2023 – 03:19

4 min

3:26am: US says it does not support attacks inside Russia, after reports of downed drones in Moscow

The United States does not encourage or enable attacks inside Russia, a U.S. State Department spokesperson said after Russian authorities said they downed drones that tried to attack Moscow early on Wednesday.

It is up to Ukraine to decide how it chooses to defend itself from the Russian invasion that began in February last year, the State Department spokesperson said, adding Russia could end the war anytime by withdrawing from Ukraine.

2:49am: Russia downs two drones, Moscow mayor

Russian air defences downed one drone over the Moscow region and another in the city, its mayor said on Wednesday, in the sixth night of attacks on the capital region.

“Tonight, air defence shot down a drone in Mozhaisky district of Moscow region. The second UAV hit a building under construction in the City,” Sergei Sobyanin said on Telegram, adding there were no early reports of casualties.

2:31am: Reports of explosion, smoke in Moscow’s business district

An explosion was heard in Moscow’s business district early on Wednesday, Russia’s RIA news agency reported.

The agency also said that smoke was seen in the area. One of the buildings in the central district, 5 kilometers (3.1 miles) from the Kremlin, was hit by a Ukrainian drone early on Saturday.

2:10am: Moscow airport suspends flights, TASS

Moscow airports suspended flights early on Wednesday, Russia’s TASS news agency reported citing unnamed officials.

Major airports around the Russian capital repeatedly closed for departing and arriving flights in recent days due to Ukrainian drone attacks.

1:56am: Netherlands to give Ukraine one thousand chargers for remote demining

The Netherlands will send Ukraine a thousand chargers for remote demining, Dutch Defence Minister Kajsa Ollongren said on a visit to Kyiv.

The announcement coincides with heavily mined Russian defence lines slowing down a Ukrainian counteroffensive to recapture territory seized by Russia since its forces invaded in February 2022.

“There is a decision to provide about a thousand portable chargers for remote demining that can make passageways in engineered barriers,” Ollongren was quoted as saying on the Ukrainian defence ministry website at a meeting with Ukrainian minister Oleksiy Reznikov on Tuesday.

“Now, as I know, you are facing the problem of extremely dense mining of territories,” she said.

11:33pm: Medvedev says Russia could annex Georgia’s breakaway regions

Russia’s former President Dmitry Medvedev, who is now a deputy chair of the Russian security council, said Russia may annex Georgia’s breakaway regions South Ossetia and Abkhazia.

“The idea of joining Russia is still popular in Abkhazia and South Ossetia,” he wrote in an article published early on Wednesday by Russian newspaper Argumenty i Fakty. “It could quite possibly be implemented if there are good reasons for that,” Medvedev said.

9:23pm: Russian strike kills three in eastern Ukraine, officials

Russian artillery hit two villages near the eastern Ukraine city of Lyman, killing three people and wounding two others late Tuesday, authorities said.

“Three people were killed and one wounded in Torske, another civilian was wounded in Zakitne,” the head of Ukraine’s Donetsk region, Pavlo Kyrylenko, posted on Telegram.

The Donetsk prosecutor’s office said on Facebook that artillery strikes first hit Torske at around 6:50 pm (1550 GMT), and then Zakitne a half-hour later.

The people killed in Torske were two women and a man, aged 63 to 88, who were seated on a bench when shells hit, it said.

Key developments from Tuesday, August 22:

The leader of Russia’s Wagner mercenary group, Yevgeny Prigozhin, appeared in a video published Monday, suggesting he was in Africa. Prigozhin, a former Kremlin ally whose group rebelled against Russia’s military leadership in June, has made few public appearances since the mutiny.

The leaders of 11 countries of the Balkan region and eastern Europe signed a joint declaration in support of the territorial integrity of Ukraine during a summit in Athens on Tuesday.

Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Tuesday said he had had “open, honest and fruitful” talks with Serbian President Aleksandar Vucic.

Russian air defences downed two attack drones near Moscow, the city’s mayor said on Tuesday, in the fifth consecutive night of strikes on the capital region.

Read yesterday’s live blog to see how the day’s events unfolded.

(FRANCE 24 with AFP, AP and Reuters)