Officials in western Russia said Monday Ukrainian drones hit a fuel station, killing at least one person and injuring three others.
Andrey Klychkov, the regional governor of Oryol, said the attack happened in the city of Livny.
Russia’s defense ministry said Monday its air defenses destroyed six Ukrainian drones over Oryol, as well as four over the Krasnodar region, one over Belgorod and another over Bryansk.
Veniamin Kondratyev, Krasnodar’s governor, reported damage to a building and a fire from drone debris falling on two villages in the region.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said late Sunday that international condemnations of Russian attacks on Kharkiv need to bring “fair consequences,” including equipping Ukraine with enough air defenses to protect its cities.
Zelenskyy also called for Ukraine’s partners to “support preemptive protection against Russian terrorists,” in reference to policies from countries such as the United States barring Ukraine from using U.S.-provided weapons to strike targets inside of Russia.
“A type of protection that would be provided against any terrorists who would be hit and destroyed before they could begin to destroy life,” Zelenskyy said. “We can see every point where Russian troops are concentrated. We know all areas from which Russian missiles are launched and combat aircraft take off.”
U.S. State Department spokesperson Matthew Miller told VOA last week that the United States does not “enable such strikes beyond Ukraine’s borders,” but that Ukraine makes its own decisions about arms provided by others.
“Ukraine is a sovereign country, and they will have to make their own determinations when it comes to using weapons that they have acquired elsewhere or that they have built or that they have produced themselves, such as some of the drones that they produce, that you’ve seen them use,” Miller said.
Zelenskyy also appealed Sunday to U.S. President Joe Biden and Chinese leader Xi Jinping to attend his peace summit in Switzerland next month as Ukraine struggles to stave off unrelenting attacks by Russia in its 27-month-old invasion.
Responding to Zelenskyy’s video appeal, a U.S. official said Sunday that the United States will participate in the peace summit but declined to say who would attend or at what level.
Ukraine hopes that the summit will add international pressure on Russia to withdraw its troops from Ukraine’s internationally recognized borders, a demand that Russia considers a non-starter in negotiations.
Last week, Russian sources told Reuters that Russian President Vladimir Putin was ready to end the war in Ukraine with a negotiated cease-fire that recognizes the current battlefield lines.
Russia has said that it sees no point to the summit since Moscow will not participate. Zelenskyy said Sunday that more than 80 countries would attend the conference.
Some information for this story came from The Associated Press, Agence France-Presse and Reuters
Source: voanews.com