After naval drones, aerial drones. Russia claimed on Saturday, August 6, that it took off one of its fighter jets to intercept an American Reaper drone which it said was approaching its border over the Black Sea, and which then made half turn.
After “detecting an air target approaching the Russian state border” in the Black Sea, Moscow launched a Su-30 fighter jet, the Russian Defense Ministry said on Telegram. “The Russian fighter crew identified the aerial target as a US Air Force MQ-9A Reaper reconnaissance drone,” the ministry added, according to which “as it approached the Russian fighter, the reconnaissance drone foreigner has made a U-turn away from the border”.
The Russian fighter plane then returned to its airfield without incident, according to the same source. This type of incident involving Russian planes and Western aircraft is not uncommon, whether in the Black Sea or the Baltic Sea, against the backdrop of the conflict in Ukraine.
A Russian attack on a blood center
A Russian bomb on a blood transfusion center in eastern Ukraine caused “deaths and injuries” on Saturday evening, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky announced. The bombed blood transfusion center is in Kupiansk, in the Kharkiv region in the east of the country.
“There are dead and injured,” the Ukrainian president said on Telegram, speaking from Saudi Arabia, where a meeting including emerging powers close to Russia is being held to discuss the “Ukrainian crisis”. Volodymyr Zelensky denounced a “war crime”, speaking of the Russians as “beasts which destroy everything that simply makes it possible to live”.
…And against an aeronautical manufacturer
Russian missiles also hit the Khmelnytsky region and Motor Sich, a manufacturer of aircraft and helicopter engines, in the evening, Volodymyr Zelensky said in his daily address. According to him, Russia fired Kinjal hypersonic missiles and Kalibr cruise missiles, “some of which were shot down”.
The Ukrainian state had taken control of this manufacturer in November 2022, as well as other companies “of strategic importance”, to help the war effort. The group’s headquarters are in Zaporizhia, a region partially occupied by Russian forces. But it was impossible to know if the Russian strikes had precisely hit the headquarters of Motor Sich. The Khmelnytsky region in western Ukraine, hundreds of kilometers from the front, is regularly targeted by Russian strikes. In particular, it is home to an important Ukrainian military airfield.
In Saudi Arabia, a long discussion behind closed doors on Ukraine
On the diplomatic front, Saudi Arabia, which supported UN Security Council resolutions after the Russian invasion, hosted a meeting in Jeddah on Saturday to discuss the “Ukrainian crisis”. The meeting, which started in the afternoon in this city located on the shores of the Red Sea, ended in the evening after several hours of speeches by the delegations present and a long discussion behind closed doors, participants said.
As expected, no final declaration will be issued, but a European source reported common ground on key points, in particular on respect for Ukraine’s “territorial integrity and sovereignty” which must be “at the heart of any peace agreement”.
Both close to Moscow and Washington, Ryad was particularly keen to receive Brazil, India, China and South Africa, emerging powers members of the BRICS (with Russia) which, unlike Westerners, do not did not side with Ukraine without however supporting the Russian invasion launched in February 2022, according to the same sources. Russia was not represented, kyiv being at the origin of these discussions.