The new attacks on Ukraine were carried out "very close" to the border with Romania, said the president of that NATO member country, a day after the fall of Russian explosive drones near the Danube, also near Romania.
"We had more attacks today, the defense minister told me, which were recorded 800 meters from our border. So, very, very close," Romanian President Klaus Iohannis said at a press conference alongside Luxembourg Prime Minister Xavier Bethel.
Since the suspension of an agreement in July that allowed Ukraine to export grain across the Black Sea, Russia has increased artillery attacks on Ukraine's southwestern border with Romania, where ports and other trade infrastructure are located.
The Ukrainian authorities announced yesterday that Russian explosive drones fell the previous night on the territory of Romania, a neighbor of Ukraine and a member of NATO, during a new wave of fierce night attacks on the south of Ukraine. Bucharest denied the claims.
According to the Ukrainians, the drones fell on the territory of Romania during the night attack on the Ukrainian port of Izmail.
The Romanian Ministry of Defense stated yesterday that it was "monitoring the situation in real time" and that "at no time" did the Russian attacks on infrastructure on the Danube near its border "present a direct military threat to the national territory or territorial waters of Romania".
Romanian President Iohannis said today that there was no drone debris or other parts that fell in Romania.
"We have full control of our airspace. We have absolutely checked everything and I can encourage the population. But yes, we are concerned about the close proximity" of those repeated attacks, Johannis said.
(BETA)
Russian troops fighting in southern Ukraine have destroyed a British-supplied Challenger 2 tank for the first time, an official in the Moscow-controlled part of Zaporozhye said, releasing what he said was a video of the burning wreckage of the armored vehicle.
In March, Ukraine thanked Britain for what it said were "fantastic machines" after London sent 14 of its Challenger 2 main battle tanks to Kiev.
Vladimir Rogov, a Russian official in the Moscow-controlled part of Zaporozhye Oblast, said on Telegram that a British tank had been destroyed in fighting near the village of Robotine in the country's southeast.
The tank, he claims, belonged to the 82nd brigade of the Ukrainian army and was supposed to reach Crimea, but instead was destroyed on what he said was the first line of Russian defense, reports Reuters.
A video posted by Rogov on Telegram shows a tank on fire by the side of the road.
Russian President Vladimir Putin said in an interview on state television, without citing evidence, that Western powers installed Vladimir Zelensky, who is of Jewish origin, as president of Ukraine to cover up the "glorification of Nazism," reports Reuters.
Moscow has repeatedly accused Ukrainian leaders of being neo-Nazis carrying out "genocide" against Russian-speakers - a claim that Kiev and Western countries reject as a baseless pretext for war.
Zelensky, who has previously said some of his grandfather's brothers were killed in the Holocaust, has repeatedly rejected Moscow's accusations that he supports neo-Nazis in Ukraine.
Now, in a televised interview with Russian television journalist Pavlo Zarubin, Putin said that by appointing an "ethnic Jew, a man of Jewish roots" to the head of modern Ukraine, the West is covering up "the anti-human essence that is the foundation of... the modern Ukrainian state."
"And that's why the whole situation is extremely disgusting, because an ethnic Jew covers up the glorification of Nazism and covers up those who once carried out the holocaust in Ukraine - which is the extermination of one and a half million people," Putin said.
In response to Reuters' request for comment, the adviser to the Ukrainian president, Mihail Podolyak, said that Putin himself is disgusting "when he tries to justify mass crimes against the citizens of another country with a monstrous lie."
Senior Ukrainian official Mihailo Podoljak rejected Turkey's suggestion that Kiev should soften its stance in order to revive the Black Sea Grain Agreement.
Recep Tayyip Erdogan said Monday after a meeting with Vladimir Putin that it would soon be possible to revive a grain deal that the United Nations says has helped ease the food crisis by putting Ukrainian grain on the market.
Russia left the agreement in July, complaining that its food and fertilizer exports face serious obstacles.
Erdogan stated that the latest UN proposal contains attempts to meet some of Russia's conditions for returning to the grain agreement. Putin said after the meeting that Russia will return to the grain agreement as soon as the promises made to it are fulfilled.
The adviser to the Ukrainian president pointed out that Kiev will not support the easing of sanctions against Moscow or the policy of "appeasement", reports Reuters.
"Let's be realistic, after all, and stop talking about non-existent options, and let's not encourage Russia to commit new crimes," said Mihailo Podoljak for the British agency.
According to him, Russia does not need an agreement on grain and that "Moscow is interested in cutting off Ukraine from the global grain market, increasing grain prices and having a monopoly over the Black Sea."
"Where is the ground here for 'softening' Ukraine's position? Podoljak said. "And to be clear, we will definitely not play the 'policy of appeasing the aggressor' and pandering to the sanctions lifting program," emphasized Podoljak.
Russian officials said that Ukraine used Australian drones to attack targets on Russian territory, adding that the country was increasingly drawn into the conflict.
"As it turns out, Australian drones are actually being used to target targets in Russia," Russian Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said, according to Reuters.
When answering questions about a report in the Sydney Morning Herald last week, she said the Ukrainians used Australian drones to attack an airport in the Russian city of Kursk.
Zakharova accused the Australian government of "enthusiastically contributing to the anti-Russian campaign directed from Washington", while trying to hide from public opinion "the unenviable circumstances that indicate that Australia is increasingly drawn into the conflict in Ukraine".
More than 300 people were killed and over 600 injured by cluster munitions in Ukraine last year, according to a report by the Commission on Cluster Munitions.
Ukraine thus surpassed Syria, the country with the largest number of victims of this type of weapon, reports the AP agency.
According to the Commission's data, 15 people were killed and 75 wounded in attacks with cluster munitions or their remnants in Syria last year.
Cluster munitions, which are banned in more than 100 countries, typically release a large number of smaller bombs that can be deadly over a wide area.
Unexploded bombs remain a danger decades after a conflict ends.
(MINE)
Russian air defenses destroyed a Ukrainian drone over Crimea on Tuesday morning, according to a statement from the Russian Defense Ministry, Reuters reports.
Ukraine said on Monday that its troops had regained more territory on the eastern front and were advancing south in their counteroffensive against Russian forces, as President Volodymyr Zelensky visited two areas of the front, Reuters reports.
Deputy Defense Minister Hana Maliyar said last Sunday Kiev forces retook about 3 square kilometers (1,16 square miles) of land around the eastern town of Bakhmut, which Russian troops captured in May after months of heavy fighting.
She also reported unspecified "success" in the direction of the villages of Novodanilivka and Novoprokopivka in the southern region of Zaporozhye, but gave no details.
Ukraine has now captured about 47 square kilometers of territory around Bakhmut since the start of its counteroffensive in early June, Maliar wrote on Telegram.
Reuters was unable to verify the reports, and Russia has not confirmed Ukraine's progress. Both sides count gains from small villages or pockets of land as recent successes.
Videos posted on the Ukrainian president's website on Monday show Zelensky visiting troops in the eastern Donetsk region, where Bakhmut is located, and in the Zaporozhye region, where Kiev forces are trying to push south to the Sea of Azov.
Zelenski is shown presenting medals to soldiers at numerous locations and thanking doctors at a field hospital on the southern front.
In his overnight address, delivered from the train, the president said the soldiers' feedback on the course of the conflict would be taken seriously.
"Everything that our fighters talked about will be presented to the participants at the command meetings, especially in connection with electronic warfare. "Guys, we heard you clearly," he said.
Kiev officials have faced criticism in Western media reports that the counteroffensive was too slow and hampered by poor tactics -- particularly by deploying troops in too many locations.
Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said last Sunday that critics should "shut up".
Kiev recaptured numerous villages and towns in its three-month offensive, but its soldiers were hampered by vast Russian minefields and trenches.
Maliar said last Sunday that Ukrainian troops had broken through Russia's first line of defense and that the Ukrainian military now expects to advance more quickly.
Moscow continued to carry out airstrikes against Ukrainian targets, including port infrastructure, and reported drone attacks on Russian territory.
The Russian Defense Ministry's Telegram account on Monday quoted an officer codenamed Hedgehog as saying: “The enemy is attacking strongly and seriously, but we are standing firm. We will not let them pass".
Russian Defense Forces shot down three drones in the western regions of Moscow, Kaluga and Tver, officials announced this morning, stating that there were no casualties.
"Last night, the anti-aircraft defense destroyed the drones that were trying to attack Moscow," Moscow Mayor Sergey Sobyanin said on Telegram.
He added that the Russian defense in Zavidovo in the northwestern Tver region destroyed the third aircraft that was moving towards the capital.
Ukraine has stepped up drone attacks on Russian territory, targeting the Moscow region and the annexed Crimean peninsula, as part of a counteroffensive that began in early June.
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