The war in the Ukrainian skies continues to rage. Kiev forces shot down 26 Russian attack drones in the east and south of the country overnight from Wednesday to Thursday, a senior army official said.
Information to remember
⇒ Poland announces operation against Russian spy network
⇒ Series of arrests of Russian journalists from independent media
⇒ Ukraine demands Patriot missiles
Poland announces ongoing operation against Russian spy network
Polish counterintelligence services ABW reported on Thursday an ongoing operation targeting a Russian spy network and carried out in coordination with services from other countries.
“ABW is acting as part of an investigation into espionage activities carried out on behalf of Russia against states and institutions of the European Union,” Polish special services spokesperson Jacek Dobrzynski wrote on X .
Series of arrests of Russian journalists from independent media
Five journalists working for independent media were arrested Wednesday evening and Thursday in Russia, where repression is in full swing. During the night, the police arrested Ekaterina Anikievitch from the media SOTAvision and Konstantin Jarov from RusNews, reported the NGO OVD-Info, which specializes in monitoring repression in Russia. Mr. Jarov was beaten and threatened with sexual violence by the police, according to a witness to the scene cited by this organization.
According to him, this violence was caused by filming carried out near the home of another journalist, Antonina Favorskaïa of SOTAvision, who was arrested on Wednesday evening immediately after being released after 10 days of administrative detention for disobedience to the police. Finally, two other journalists, Alexandra Astakhova and Anastassia Moussatova, who had come to meet their colleague after he was released from detention, were also arrested and taken to be questioned by investigators, according to the same source.
Putin does not plan to meet victims’ families
Russian President Vladimir Putin has no immediate plans to meet the families of the victims of the attack on Crocus City Hall in Moscow last week, an attack which left 143 dead, the Kremlin said on Thursday.
“If contacts are necessary, we will inform you,” replied the president’s spokesperson, Dmitri Peskov, when asked by journalists whether Vladimir Putin planned to meet the victims’ relatives.
A new drone attack in the night
“The enemy launched […] 28 attack drones of the Shahed-136/131 + type “in the night from the Russian region of Kursk and Cape Chaouda, in the Crimean peninsula annexed by Moscow in 2014, reported the commander of the army of Ukrainian air force, Mykola Oleshchouk, in a Telegram message published Thursday morning. “Twenty-six” of these drones were “destroyed” in the regions of Odessa (south), Kharkiv (east), Dnipropetrovsk (east) and Zaporizhia (south). ), added Mykola Olechchouk, without mentioning any injuries or damage.
Moscow also directed three Kh-22 cruise missiles, an Kh-31P anti-radar missile and an S-300 surface-to-air missile against Ukraine during the night, according to the same source which did not communicated further on this subject.
Four dead in bombings
In Kharkiv, which had nearly a million and a half inhabitants before the war, a Russian bombing left at least one dead and 19 injured, including four children, by hitting civilian targets, local authorities announced. According to initial information from the General Prosecutor’s Office, two high-powered bombs, dropped from a plane, damaged residential buildings, a school and a kindergarten in the middle of the afternoon. The Kharkiv region borders the northern border with Russia and regularly finds itself under fire from Russian troops.
In the village of Borova, a 12-year-old boy was killed in a Russian strike Wednesday evening, the local prosecutor’s office said, adding that the type of weapons used had not yet been determined.
Four people were also injured during nighttime bombings and a drone attack in this region, Governor Oleg Synegubov said earlier. Two others were killed in strikes elsewhere in Ukraine.
Ukraine demands Patriot missiles
Ukraine is asking its Western allies to send it more aid, and faster. But, in Brussels as in Washington, political divisions have hampered the delivery of arms and the sending of funds in recent months. President Volodymyr Zelensky once again urged Ukraine’s allies to “accelerate the delivery” of F-16 fighter jets and transfer additional Patriot batteries.
“There is no rational justification to explain why Patriots, of which there are many around the world, still do not cover the skies of Kharkiv and other cities and towns attacked by Russian terrorists,” he added.
A little earlier, his Minister of Foreign Affairs, Dmytro Kouleba, had relayed the same message. The powerful and expensive Patriot system was first supplied to Ukraine in the spring of 2023.