Ukraine’s shock Drone attack on Russian military air basesIncluding a little in Russian territory, which, according to President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, was secretly planned and coordinated from the interior of Russia in the last 18 months, seemed to have left the Kremlin speech on Monday.
The Russian media managed by the State cited the country’s Defense Ministry saying on Monday that the forces had struck production, launch and storage sites of Ukrainian drones, and claiming to have shot down hundreds of drones launched by the Ukrainian in the last 24 hours, but there was no direct public response from the Russian authorities to the Ukrainian strike.
While Ukraine has Launched drones in Russiaincluding the capital Moscow, for months, as well as the staging of others Secret operations on Russian soilSunday’s attack was remarkable for its scope and scale. Ukraine said it has damaged or destroyed 41 Russian bombers in the bases of the vast country. Ukrainian officials said the attack did not endanger any Russian civilians.
He was also remarkable for his timing, one day before the two sides sat in face to face in Türkiye for a second round of direct talks.
The head of Ukraine SBU Intelligence Agency said in a statement on Tuesday that Russia “thought that it could bomb Ukraine and constantly kill Ukrainians with impunity. But this is not the case. We will respond to Russian terror and destroy the enemy everywhere – in the sea, in the air and on earth.”
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SBU chief, Vasyl Maliuk, said in the statement that Ukraine had affected planes in four Russian bases, inflicting more than $ 7 billion in damage on the Russian bombers fleet.
The Ministry of Defense in Moscow said on Monday that Russia’s air defenses intercepted a total of 316 Ukrainian drones in 24 hours, which includes Ukraine’s attack. The Russian ministry said that 205 of these drones had been struck outside the “special operating area”, a term that the Kremlin uses to refer to the land it has grasped since the launch of its full scale Invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The Ukrainian authorities said that before Dawn on Monday, Russia launched two ballistic missiles and a series of drones in the northeast city of Kharkiv, a few kilometers from the Russian border, injuring at least six people, including a child.
In addition, the Russian army said that more than 1,400 Ukrainian soldiers were killed in northern Ukraine during the day before.
Russia and Ukraine hold the 2nd round of talks in Türkiye
Despite the strong escalation of war, making a breakthrough even less likely than before, the Russian and Ukrainian delegations sat in front of Monday in Istanbul for the second cycle of negotiations in the context of peace.
The representatives of Ukraine, led by the Minister of Defense, Rustem Umerov, had to present a plan requiring a “complete and unconditional ceasefire in the sky, on land and at sea as a necessary context and a prerequisite for peace negotiations”, declared the reuters news agency, citing a text of the Ukrainian proposal which it had considered. The proposed truce would last at least 30 days, in accordance with calls made by the Trump administration previously.
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Ukraine had to demand the unconditional return of all children and Ukrainian civilian hostages taken during the war, and that the territorial gains produced by Russia since February 2014, when Russia has invaded and illegally annexed the Crimean Peninsula, and not recognized by the international community.
In return, Ukraine is open to the lifting of “certain sanctions” imposed on Russia by the United States and its allies, “but in stages and only gradually, with a mechanism to use the sanctions if necessary”.
Ukrainians also want Russian sovereign assets frozen by Western nations to be used for reconstruction or to remain frozen until repairs are paid.
Moscow did not, entering the second round of talks on Monday, revealed new conditions or terms for a hypothetical cease-fire.
The government of President Vladimir Putin insisted for months that the only way to put an end to war is to respond to what she vaguely calls the “deep causes” of the conflict. Russia insists on war, which Putin only calls a “special military operation”, was caused by NATO’s ambitions for a new expansion to the east and by Moscow’s desire to defend Russian Ukrainians in the eastern part of the neighboring nation.
Putin and her superior assistants regularly reject pro-Europe, Pro-Nato Zelenskyy as illegitimate leader in Ukraine. The Russian president refused to accept the challenge of his Ukrainian counterpart to hold direct personal talks, face to face.
Turkish Foreign Minister Hakan Fidan said on Monday when talks began that discussions on such a meeting of Putin-Zelenskyy “will be taken into account.”
But there was no confirmation from Ukraine or Russia that a dialogue as high was imminent. Instead, reports from Turkey suggested that the second cycle of talks ended in just over an hour. Zelenskyy, who did not attend the negotiations, told journalists during a visit Monday in Lithuania, however, that a new exchange of prisoner between the teams at war was organizing.
He did not say how far the planning of an exchange had disappeared, but a Exchange at the end of last month Out of approximately 1,000 captured civilians and prisoners of war was the only tangible result of the first series of talks between Russia and Ukraine.
President Trump expressed his frustration towards Zelenskyy and Putin for not accepting a truce. During the electoral campaign last year, Trump has repeatedly promised to negotiate the end of the war in the hours following his entry into office. The American president recently delivered rare strong criticisms of Putin, Call it “absolutely crazy” To continue hammering Ukrainian cities with missiles while the United States and its partners are pressure for a peace agreement.
Mr. Trump wondered in an article on social networks during the last prisoner exchanging if she, “could lead to something big? “”
Russian officials were mentioned by the country’s public media, saying that the two parties had agreed on Monday to hold a third round of talks, but no date was fixed. Officials recognized that future prisoner exchanges had been a key point for discussion, but Ukrainian officials said Russia had rejected the call to a 30-day largest ceasefire.
There was no immediate reaction from the White House to the second series of negotiations in Turkey on Monday, but the Trump administration clearly indicated that Ukraine had given no prior warning of the Sunday drone attack before these talks.