Ukraine launched a major drone attack on the Russian city of Kazan, 1,000km (620 miles) awayOn Saturday, they damaged residential buildings and temporarily closed the airport. A drone crashed into a high-rise apartment block and a skyscraper in a city of more than 1.3 million people, but there were no casualties, local officials said. Videos posted on Russian social media networks showed drones hitting a high-rise building and setting off balloons. Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova said two drones hit a 37-story apartment block and that Ukraine It had been an uncertain industrial facility but that it would take a loss.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Saturday, without naming the strikes in Kazan: “We will certainly continue to hit Russian military targets with drones and missiles.” Some Kazan residents have left – Russian authorities did not provide figures – and all major public events in the province have been canceled as a precaution after the strikes. Russia’s civil aviation authority Rosaviatsia temporarily closed Kazan International Airport, one of the country’s busiest, but reopened later on Saturday. Near the drones that hit the apartment block, three drones were shot down and three air defense systems were suppressed, according to the foreign ministry. The attack in Kazan – about 800km east of Moscow – comes days after Russia struck the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, killing one person and wounding 13, and after five were killed by a Ukrainian attack in the Kursk region on the Russian border.
Zelenskyy said on Saturday that he met the director of CLA, William Burns in Ukraine — a rare public disclosure of the meeting between the two. The president of Ukraine said that they had met many times throughout the war, but their meetings were closed. “Bill Burns paid his last visit to Ukraine as director of the CIA,” Zelenskyy said on Telegram, posting a photo of him shaking hands with Burns in front of the Ukrainian state crest. “I had many meetings with him during this war, and I am grateful for his help. Generally, such meetings are publicly announced, and all our meetings – in Ukraine, in other European countries, in America, and in other parts of the world – were held without public information”. .
Russia’s defense ministry said the army captured a new fortress on Saturday near the city of Kurakhove in eastern Ukraine.where Russian forces have made major advances in recent months. The village of Kostiantynopolske is about 10 km southwest of Kurakhove, an industrial town that threatens the Russian target.
The Russian embassy in London on Saturday described the UK’s plan to transfer to Ukraine more than £2bn ($2.5bn) backed by frozen Russian assets as a “fraudulent scheme”.. Britain said in October it would lend Ukraine £2.26bn as part of a much larger loan from the Group of Seven nations backed by Russia’s frozen central bank assets to help it buy weapons and rebuild damaged infrastructure. UK Defense Minister John Healey said the money would only be for Ukraine’s military and could be used to help develop drones that could range further than some missiles.