Kiev, Aug 2, (dpa/GNA) – Russia’s new volley of Iranian-made drones, targeted Kiev and the Black Sea region of Odessa during the night, but Ukrainian air defences shot down all 10 aimed at the capital, and destroyed 23 sent to the Odessa area, authorities said on Wednesday morning.
Some drones made it through in the southern Odessa region, hitting the port’s infrastructure, the air defence said. According to media reports, there were explosions and fires in the port of Izmail on the Danube. At least one grain silo was damaged.
The attacks on Kiev came from several directions, the city’s military administration said.
There were no casualties or serious destruction, according to Serhiy Popko, the head of the Kiev authority. He said Russia used Iranian-made Shahed drones to attack the city.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, praised the “work of the heroic air defence” on his Telegram news channel.
“Fortunately, there were no casualties. Regrettably, there is damage,” he announced. He did not give details. Russia’s “terrorists” had again targeted grain and global food security with the attacks on port infrastructure in the Odessa area, he said.
When Russia attacks civilian ports, “it’s a threat to everyone on the continent.” “Russia can and must be stopped,” he said.
In Russia, the series of arson attacks on district military recruitment offices continued with at least eight attempted attacks since Tuesday evening, the online news channel BAZA reported.
According to estimates by the Russian opposition, there have been over 130 arson attacks on government and military objects since the war began. Around 30 of these are said to have taken place since last weekend alone.
A video published on the internet showed a woman lighting an incendiary device in front of the doors of the municipal district military recruitment office in St Petersburg. In Moscow, a 70-year-old man was reportedly detained near a military commissariat with Molotov cocktails in his pocket.
BAZA reported other attempted arson attacks in Maykop and Stavropol in the Caucasus, in Sestrorezk near St Petersburg, in Ishimbay near the Russian-Kazakh border and in the port city of Nakhodka in the Far Eastern region of Primorsky on the Sea of Japan. In some of these eastern regions of Russia, ethnic minorities are the most affected by Russia’s war against Ukraine.
In April 2023, the British Ministry of Defence (MoD) estimated, that the number of soldiers from these areas killed as a proportion of the population, was more than 30 times higher than in Moscow. In the autumn of 2022, for example, a unit from Primorsky was said to have lost 300 men in four days on the front line.
The impoverished Siberian region of Buryatia is also said to be particularly affected by Moscow’s mobilization, according to media reports. In the Buryat regional capital of Ulan-Ude, a district army recruitment office was set ablaze on Monday evening.
After a mobilization of 300,000 reservists in September 2022, described by Moscow as a “partial call-up,” the number of attacks on district military offices increased sharply.
The British MoD, in its daily update on Twitter, said Russia is building new combat units on a larger scale for the first time since it started its full-scale invasion of its neighbour in February 2022.
Several formations have probably been formed in the past two months, including the 25th Army, it said. Since the war’s start, Russia had mainly replenished existing units with mobilized reservists, and not created entirely new formations, it said.
“An exception to this was the 3rd Army Corps, created in the summer 2022, which has generally performed poorly,” London added.
It said, “Russia will likely deploy any new formation as a reserve force in Ukraine.” In the longer term, Russia wants to strengthen its forces against NATO, but the British military said this won’t be easy.
“Without a major new wave of mandatory mobilization, Russia is unlikely to find enough new troops to resource even one new army,” it wrote.”
The MoD started publishing the daily updates when the war started. Moscow says London is using them to spread disinformation.
GNA