A drone attack struck the Russian city of Kazan, 620 miles from the frontline, damaging residential buildings and temporarily shutting down the airport. The attack occurred on Saturday, with a drone crashing into a high-rise apartment block and causing significant damage to another skyscraper.
Despite the damage, no casualties were reported in the city of over 1.3 million residents. Local officials said that two drones hit a 37-storey apartment building, but Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelenskyy stated that Ukraine had targeted an unspecified industrial facility, which suffered no damage.
The Russian civil aviation authority temporarily closed Kazan international airport due to the attack, but reopened it later on Saturday. Three drones were shot down and three others were suppressed by air defence systems, according to the foreign ministry.
This attack comes a day after Russian strikes on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv, killed one person and wounded 13, and follows five deaths caused by a Ukrainian attack on the Russian border region of Kursk.
In other news, President Zelenskyy revealed that he met CIA director William Burns in Ukraine, marking a rare public disclosure of their meetings. The two have had multiple secret meetings during the war, but this marks one of the first times they have been publicly acknowledged.
Additionally, Russia’s defence ministry announced that they captured a new village near the key city of Kurakhove in eastern Ukraine. This comes as Russian forces make significant advances in recent months.
Furthermore, the Russian embassy in London criticized the UK’s planned transfer of over £2 billion to Ukraine, calling it a “fraudulent scheme”. The UK has agreed to lend Ukraine the money, which is backed by frozen Russian assets, to help buy weapons and rebuild damaged infrastructure.
Source: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2024/dec/22/ukraine-war-briefing-kyiv-strikes-russia-in-major-drone-attack-1000km-from-frontline