{"id":119773,"date":"2024-12-22T12:17:51","date_gmt":"2024-12-22T12:17:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/ukraine-war-live-kyiv-strikes-russian-skyscrapers-in-major-drone-attack-the-independent\/"},"modified":"2024-12-22T12:17:51","modified_gmt":"2024-12-22T12:17:51","slug":"ukraine-war-live-kyiv-strikes-russian-skyscrapers-in-major-drone-attack-the-independent","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/ukraine-war-live-kyiv-strikes-russian-skyscrapers-in-major-drone-attack-the-independent\/","title":{"rendered":"Ukraine war live: Kyiv strikes Russian skyscrapers in major drone attack – The Independent"},"content":{"rendered":"

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Putin says he is open to talks with Donald Trump, saying \u2018we will have things to discuss\u2019
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The Russian city of Kazan suffered a major drone attack from Ukrainian forces<\/a> on Saturday, despite being 1,000km (620 miles) from the frontline
Residential buildings were damaged and the airport was temporarily shut down, after the drone smashed into a high-rise building and damaged a skyscraper.
Videos posted on Russian social media networks showed the damage and a fireball emerging from the building, while local authorities said there were no casualties.
Ukraine\u2019s air defences downed 52 of the 103 Russian drones launched overnight, the Ukrainian military said on Sunday. The military said on Telegram that it had lost track of 44 drones, and another had left the territory of Ukraine to Belarus.
Meanwhile, Putin\u2019s forces have captured the village of Kostiantynopolske in the Donetsk region of eastern Ukraine, just six miles from the city of Kurakhove, which they have stormed and are threatening to encircle.
Earlier this week, Russian president Vladimir Putin<\/a> has said he should have invaded Ukraine earlier as he used an end-of-year press conference to double down on his decision to start the war.
Russia\u2019s central bank has left its benchmark interest rate at 21%, holding off on further increases as it struggles to snuff out inflation fueled by the government\u2019s spending on the war against Ukraine<\/a>.
The decision comes amid criticism from influential business figures, including tycoons close to the Kremlin<\/a>, that high rates are putting the brakes on business activity and the economy.
The central bank said in a statement that credit conditions had tightened \u201cmore than envisaged\u201d by the October rate hike that brought the benchmark to its current record level.
Read the full article here: <\/em>
Russia\u2019s central bank has left its benchmark interest rate at 21%, holding off on further increases as it struggles to snuff out inflation fueled by the government\u2019s spending on the war against Ukraine
Ukraine\u2019s air defences downed 52 of the 103 Russian drones launched overnight, the Ukrainian military said on Sunday.
The military said on Telegram that it had lost track of 44 drones, and another had left the territory of Ukraine to Belarus.
The military gave no information on the fate of the remaining drones.
However, they said that in Kherson, Mykolaiv, Chernihiv, Sumy, Zhytomyr and Kyiv regions, private businesses and apartment buildings have been damaged by the Russian attack.
\u201cTentatively, without casualties,\u201d the military added.
The Russian Defence Ministry said on Sunday that Russian forces had captured two villages in Ukraine – Lozova in Kharkiv region and Sontsivka in Donetsk region, Russian news agencies reported.
These battlefield reports have not been independently confirmed.
North Korea<\/a> has demonstrated that it could produce ballistic missiles and supply them to Russia for use against Ukraine in a matter of months<\/a>, an expert said on Wednesday.
Jonah Leff told the U.N. Security Council that researchers on the ground examined remnants of four missiles from North Korea recovered in Ukraine in July and August, including one that had marks indicating it was produced in 2024.
\u201cThis is the first public evidence of missiles having been produced in North Korea and then used in Ukraine within a matter of months, not years,\u201d he said.
Read the full article here:<\/em>
Kim Jong Un vowed his country would \u2018invariably support\u2019 Russia\u2019s war in Ukraine
Moscow said it had downed 42 Ukrainian drones over five Russian regions overnight.
Twenty drones were shot down over the Oryol region, eight drones each were destroyed in the Rostov and Bryansk regions, five in the Kursk region and one over Krasnodar Krai, the ministry said in a post on the Telegram messaging app.
One attack triggered a fire at a fuel infrastructure facility in the village of Stalnoi Kon, said Andrei Klychkov, the governor of Oryol.
\u201cFortunately, thanks to the quick response, the consequences of the attack were avoided – the fire was promptly localised and is now fully extinguished. There were no casualties or significant damage,\u201d he said.
It was the second week in a row where fuel infrastructure facilities in Oryol have been attacked.
The heads of the Rostov and Bryansk regions said there were no casualties or damage after the latest drone attacks.
For the world, 2024 was riven by \u2014 and in some ways defined by \u2014 conflict on two fronts.
The ripples after the previous year\u2019s Hamas<\/a> attacks in Israel<\/a> left Gaza<\/a> a shambles and tens of thousands dead, and an adjacent conflict between Israel and Hezbollah is playing out across the Lebanon landscape as the year ends.
A continent away, the Russia-Ukraine<\/a> war, which began with Russia\u2019s invasion in early 2022, rages on and evolves, claiming more casualties as it goes.
Read the full article here: <\/em>
For the world, 2024 was riven by conflict on two fronts
Moscow sent 113 drones into Ukraine overnight into Saturday, Ukrainian officials said. According to Ukraine\u2019s Air Force, 57 drones were shot down during the attacks.
A further 56 drones were \u201clost,\u201d likely having been electronically jammed.
The governor of Ukraine\u2019s Kharkiv region, Oleh Syniehubov, said eight people were wounded Friday night in drone attacks on the regional capital, also called Kharkiv.
In the city of Zaporizhzhia, four people were wounded when a nine-story residential building was damaged by falling drone debris on Friday night, regional Gov. Ivan Fedorov said.
Not so very long ago, Vladimir Putin, the would-be reincarnation of Joseph Stalin, had some cause for satisfaction. True, his ill-fated \u201cspecial military operation\u201d in Ukraine<\/a> had spectacularly failed in its initial stated aim of subsuming the country into a Greater Russia, resistance supposedly crumbling in days, with Volodymyr Zelensky<\/a> skulking off into exile.
However, the Kremlin\u2019s \u201cmeat-grinder\u201d strategy has succeeded in occupying roughly a third of what was left of Ukrainian territory<\/a> after the 2014 invasion. Russian troops were advancing, albeit at a glacial pace and an obscene cost in human lives<\/a>.
The attacks on civilians, homes and energy infrastructure were helping to demoralise and exhaust the Ukrainians, brave as they were. Some 40,000 fresh troops were promised by North Korea<\/a> \u2013 Kim Jong Un\u2019s elite squads, according to reports. Mr Kim and Russia\u2019s other allies in the Middle East were assisting with the sanctions-busting; and the Iranians and Syrians (and, to a lesser degree, the Houthis, Hezbollah and Hamas) shared Russia\u2019s agenda.
Read the full analysis: <\/em>
For all of Russia\u2019s recent setbacks, it is increasingly unlikely Ukraine will be able to push back invading forces to the border positions when hostilities first broke out \u2013 but it may yet force Vladimir Putin into a negotiated peace that would ensure greater security for Europe
Ukraine brought the war into the heart of Russia Saturday morning with drone attacks that local authorities said damaged residential buildings in the city of Kazan in the Tatarstan region, over 600 miles (1,000 kilometers) from the front line.
The press service of Tatarstan’s governor, Rustam Minnikhanov, said that eight drones attacked the city. Six hit residential buildings, one hit an industrial facility and one was shot down over a river, the statement said.
A video posted on local Telegram news channel Astra shows a drone flying into the upper floors of a high-rise building.
The attacks, which Ukraine didn’t acknowledge in keeping with its security policy, come after a Ukrainian attack Friday on a town in Russia’s Kursk border region using US-supplied missiles killed six people, including a child.
Ukraine<\/a> lacks the military capability to retake all the territories occupied by Russia<\/a> since 2014, president Volodymyr Zelensky<\/a> has acknowledged, as he urged the West to take stronger action to confront Moscow.
In an interview with the French newspaper Le Parisien<\/em>, Mr Zelensky made it clear that Kyiv<\/a> would not formally recognise Russian control over any Ukrainian territory<\/a>.
\u201cLegally, we cannot give up our territories. This is prohibited by the constitution,\u201d the Ukrainian president said. \u201cBut let\u2019s not use such big words. Russia actually controls part of our territory today.\u201d
Read the full article here: <\/em>
Ukrainian president rules out conceding land to Russia but calls for stronger Western intervention
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Notifications can be managed in browser preferences.Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged inPlease refresh your browser to be logged inPutin says he is open to talks with Donald Trump, saying \u2018we will have things to discuss\u2019Independent PremiumWant to bookmark your favourite articles and stories to […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":119774,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_genesis_hide_title":false,"_genesis_hide_breadcrumbs":false,"_genesis_hide_singular_image":false,"_genesis_hide_footer_widgets":false,"_genesis_custom_body_class":"","_genesis_custom_post_class":"","_genesis_layout":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-119773","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world","8":"entry"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119773","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=119773"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/119773\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/119774"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=119773"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=119773"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/quixnet.net\/wpinstance\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=119773"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}