Ukraine targets Moscow in ‘one of largest ever’ drone attacks – Newstrends
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Ukraine targets Moscow in ‘one of largest ever’ drone attacks

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4 months ago

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Ukraine targets Moscow in ‘one of largest ever’ drone attacks

Ukraine has launched one of its largest drone attacks on Moscow, as it presses on with a major incursion into Russia’s Kursk region, Russian authorities said.

Russia’s Ministry of Defence said on Wednesday that air defence forces shot down 11 drones over Moscow and its surrounding region, with some reportedly downed over the city of Podolsk some 38km (24 miles) south of the Kremlin.

“This is one of the largest ever attempts to attack Moscow with drones,” Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said on the Telegram messaging app. No damage or casualties were reported.

Drone attacks on Moscow are rare. Ukraine’s latest attempt to target the Russian capital appeared to be larger than an attack in May 2023, when at least eight drones were struck down.

The barrage was part of a broader attack on Russia, with the Ministry of Defence saying its air defence units destroyed 45 Ukrainian drones in total overnight.

In addition to the 11 drones destroyed over the Moscow region, 23 drones were downed in the border region of Bryansk, six in the border region of Belgorod, three in the Kaluga region, which borders the Moscow region to its northeast, and two in the embattled Kursk region, the ministry said.

Russia’s state news agency RIA reported that two drones were destroyed over the Tula region, which borders the Moscow region to its north.

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Following the assault on Moscow, temporary restrictions were imposed overnight at Moscow’s Vnukovo, Domodedovo and Zhukovsky airports, but all three returned to normal operations later on Wednesday.

Reporting from the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, Al Jazeera’s defence editor, Alex Gatopoulos, said given how well protected Moscow and other Russian cities are “it remains to be seen whether this is a departure or just a one-off by Ukraine’s military command”.

Lightning raid

Ukraine’s drone assault came as Russia struggles to push Ukrainian forces out of Kursk, two weeks after the surprise incursion.

Alexei Smirnov, the acting regional governor of Kursk, said one person was killed and two injured after a Ukrainian drone dropped an explosive on a vehicle.

Kyiv also claimed to have destroyed Russian pontoon bridges with US-made weapons to defend its incursion.

A video posted by Ukrainian special forces showed strikes on several pontoon crossings in the region, where Russia has reported that Ukraine has destroyed at least three bridges over the Seym river.

“Where do Russian pontoon bridges ‘disappear’ in the Kursk region? Operators … accurately destroy them,” Ukraine’s Special Operations Forces said on Telegram.

In a televised address on Wednesday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the incursion was continuing and that his forces controlled some areas, but he gave no further details.

Hundreds of prisoners were taken and tens of thousands of civilians were forced to evacuate following Ukraine’s lightning raid on Kursk on August 6. Ukraine now claims to control 1,263sq km (488sq miles) of Kursk territory, including 93 settlements.

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Russia’s electoral commission said it was postponing elections in seven municipalities in Kursk, posting on Telegram that the polls would take place once there was “a full guarantee of the security of voters”.

Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev, the deputy head of Russia’s Security Council, promised on Wednesday that there would be no talks between the two countries until Ukraine is completely defeated.

“The empty chatter of intermediaries that no one had appointed about the wonderful peace is over,” he said on Telegram. “There will be no more negotiations until the complete defeat of the enemy.”

On Wednesday, Ukrainian forces said they had struck an S-300 antiaircraft missile system based in Russia’s southern Rostov region.

Ukraine’s military also said it had destroyed 50 of 69 attack drones launched by Russia during an overnight attack. One had entered Ukraine from Belarus and another had returned to Russia, it said.

Ukrainian drones had hit an oil storage facility in Rostov on Sunday, sparking a massive fire. On Wednesday, hundreds of Russian firefighters were still battling the blaze.

“Does this signal a departure in Ukraine’s strategic thinking? They’ve been targeting very successfully Russia’s industrial capacity to wage war,” said Al Jazeera’s Gatopoulos, adding that the output from the oil refinery was “down to a mere fraction of what it was beforehand”.

Meanwhile, Russia’s Defence Ministry said on Wednesday that its forces have taken control of the settlement of Zhelanne in the Pokrovsk district of Donetsk, as part of an overall drive to capture the entire Donetsk region.

India-China diplomacy

Russian President Vladimir Putin met Chinese Premier Li Qiang in Moscow, the Kremlin said.

“Our countries have large-scale joint plans, projects in the economic and humanitarian areas, we expect them to last for many years,” RIA quoted Putin as saying.

Putin and Chinese President Xi Jinping had agreed at a summit in May to deepen their “comprehensive partnership and strategic cooperation entering a new era”.

After meeting Putin in July, Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi will visit Kyiv on Friday to meet Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, and said he will be discussing ending the war with Russia.

India has avoided condemning Russia’s invasion and is the world’s largest buyer of Russian weapons.

Ukraine targets Moscow in ‘one of largest ever’ drone attacks

Source: Al Jazeera and news agencies

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Syria not threat to world, rebel leader al-Sharaa tells BBC

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3 days ago

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December 19, 2024

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Ahmed al-Sharaa

Syria not threat to world, rebel leader al-Sharaa tells BBC

The de facto leader of Syria, Ahmed al-Sharaa, has said the country is exhausted by war and is not a threat to its neighbours or to the West.

In an interview with the BBC in Damascus, he called for sanctions on Syria to be lifted.

“Now, after all that has happened, sanctions must be lifted because they were targeted at the old regime. The victim and the oppressor should not be treated in the same way,” he said.

Sharaa led the lightning offensive that toppled Bashar al-Assad’s regime less than two weeks ago. He is the leader of the Hayat Tahrir al-Sham (HTS), the dominant group in the rebel alliance, and was previously known by his nom de guerre of Abu Mohammed al-Jolani.

He said HTS should be de-listed as a terrorist organisation. It is designated as one by the UN, US, EU and UK, among many others, as it started as a splinter group of al-Qaeda, which it broke away from in 2016.

Sharaa said HTS was not a terrorist group.

They did not target civilians or civilian areas, he said. In fact, they considered themselves to be victim of the crimes of the Assad regime.

He denied that he wanted to turn Syria into a version of Afghanistan.

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Sharaa said the countries were very different, with different traditions. Afghanistan was a tribal society. In Syria, he said, there was a different mindset.

He said he believed in education for women.

“We’ve had universities in Idlib for more than eight years,” Sharaa said, referring to Syria’s north-western province that has been held by rebels since 2011.

“I think the percentage of women in universities is more than 60%.”

And when asked whether the consumption of alcohol would be allowed, Sharaa said: “There are many things I just don’t have the right to talk about because they are legal issues.”

He added that there would be a “Syrian committee of legal experts to write a constitution. They will decide. And any ruler or president will have to follow the law”.

Sharaa was relaxed throughout the interview, wearing civilian clothes, and tried to offer reassurance to all those who believe his group has not broken with its extremist past.

Many Syrians do not believe him.

The actions of Syria’s new rulers in the next few months will indicate the kind of country they want Syria to be – and the way they want to rule it.

Syria not threat to world, rebel leader al-Sharaa tells BBC

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Israel hits ports, energy sites in Yemen after missile intercepted

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3 days ago

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December 19, 2024

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Israel hits ports, energy sites in Yemen after missile intercepted

JERUSALEM: Israel said Thursday it struck ports and energy infrastructure it alleges are used by Houthi militants, after intercepting a missile fired by the group.

Israel’s military said it “conducted precise strikes on Houthi military targets in Yemen — including ports and energy infrastructure in Sanaa, which the Houthis have been using in ways that effectively contributed to their military actions.”

The announcement came shortly after Israel said it had intercepted a missile fired from Yemen.

Al-Masira, a media channel belonging to the Houthis, said a series of “aggressive raids” were launched in the Yemeni capital of Sanaa and the port city of Hodeidah.

It reported raids that “targeted two central power plants” in Yemen’s capital Sanaa, while in Hodeidah it said “the enemy launched four aggressive raids targeting the port… and two raids targeting” an oil facility.

The strikes were the second time this week that Israel’s military has intercepted a missile from Yemen.

On Monday, the Houthis claimed a missile launch they said was aimed at “a military target of the Israeli enemy in the occupied area of Yaffa” — a reference to Israel’s Tel Aviv area.

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Also Monday, an Israeli navy missile boat intercepted a drone in the Mediterranean after it was launched from Yemen, the military said.

The Houthi militants have said they are acting in solidarity with Palestinians and pledged Monday to continue operations “until the aggression on Gaza stops and the siege is lifted.”

On December 9, a drone claimed by Houthis exploded on the top floor of a residential building in the central Israel city of Yavne, causing no casualties.

In July, a Houthi drone attack in Tel Aviv killed an Israeli civilian, prompting retaliatory strikes on the Yemeni port of Hodeidah.

The Houthis have also regularly targeted shipping in the Red Sea and the Gulf of Aden, leading to retaliatory strikes on Houthi targets by United States and sometimes British forces.

Israeli military spokesman Daniel Hagari said the group had become a “global threat,” pointing to Iran’s support for the militants.

“We will continue to act against anyone, anyone in the Middle East, that threatens the state of Israel,” he said.

 

Israel hits ports, energy sites in Yemen after missile intercepted

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Gaza mediators intensify ceasefire efforts, Israeli strikes kill 20 people

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3 days ago

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December 19, 2024

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A Palestinian boy looks as others inspect the damage at a tent camp sheltering displaced people, following an Israeli strike, amid the Israel-Hamas conflict, in Al-Mawasi area, in Khan Younis, southern Gaza Strip, December 18, 2024. (Reuters)

Gaza mediators intensify ceasefire efforts, Israeli strikes kill 20 people

CAIRO: The United States, joined by Arab mediators, sought on Wednesday to conclude an agreement between Israel and Hamas to halt the 14-month-old war in the Gaza Strip where medics said Israeli strikes killed at least 20 Palestinians overnight.

A Palestinian official close to the negotiations said on Wednesday that mediators had narrowed gaps on most of the agreement’s clauses. He said Israel had introduced conditions which Hamas rejected but would not elaborate.

On Tuesday, sources close to the talks in Cairo, the Egyptian capital, said an agreement could be signed in coming days on a ceasefire and a release of hostages held in Gaza in return for Palestinian prisoners held by Israel.

Medics said an Israeli airstrike killed at least 10 people in a house in the northern town of Beit Lahiya while six were killed in separate airstrikes in Gaza City, Nuseirat camp in central areas, and Rafah near the border with Egypt.

In Beit Hanoun in the northern Gaza Strip, medics said four people were killed in an airstrike on a house. There was no immediate comment from the Israeli military spokesman.

Israeli forces have operated in the towns of Beit Hanoun and Beit Lahiya as well as the nearby Jabalia camp since October, in a campaign the military said aimed to prevent Hamas militants from regrouping.

Palestinians accuse Israel of carrying out acts of “ethnic cleansing” to depopulate the northern edge of the enclave to create a buffer zone. Israel denies it.

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Hamas does not disclose its casualties, and the Palestinian health ministry does not distinguish in its daily death toll between combatants and non-combatants.

On Wednesday, the Israeli military said it struck a number of Hamas militants planning an imminent attack against Israeli forces operating in Jabalia.

Later on Wednesday, Muhammad Saleh, director of Al-Awda Hospital in Jabalia, said Israeli shelling in the vicinity damaged the facility, wounding seven medics and one patient inside the hospital.

The Israeli military had no immediate comment.

In the Central Gaza camp of Bureij, Palestinian families began leaving some districts after the army posted new evacuation orders on X and in written and audio messages to mobile phones of some of the population there, citing new firing of rockets by Palestinian militants from the area.

CEASEFIRE GAINS MOMENTUM

The US administration, joined by mediators from Egypt and Qatar, has made intensive efforts in recent days to advance the talks before President Joe Biden leaves office next month.

In Jerusalem, Israeli President Isaac Herzog met Adam Boehler, US President-elect Donald Trump’s designated envoy for hostage affairs. Trump has threatened that “all hell is going to break out” if Hamas does not release its hostages by Jan. 20, the day Trump returns to the White House.

CIA Director William Burns was due in Doha on Wednesday for talks with Qatari Prime Minister Sheikh Mohammed bin Abdulrahman Al-Thani on bridging remaining gaps between Israel and Hamas, other knowledgeable sources said. The CIA declined to comment.

Israeli negotiators were in Doha on Monday looking to bridge gaps between Israel and Hamas on a deal Biden outlined in May.

There have been repeated rounds of talks over the past year, all of which have failed, with Israel insisting on retaining a military presence in Gaza and Hamas refusing to release hostages until the troops pulled out.

The war in Gaza, triggered by a Hamas-led attack on communities in southern Israel that killed some 1,200 people and saw more than 250 abducted as hostages, has sent shockwaves across the Middle East and left Israel isolated internationally.

Israel’s campaign has killed more than 45,000 Palestinians, displaced most of the 2.3 million population and reduced much of the coastal enclave to ruins.

 

Gaza mediators intensify ceasefire efforts, Israeli strikes kill 20 people

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