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Belarus has started a three-day military exercise on the border with Poland and Lithuania. Energy facilities in two Ukrainian regions were attacked by Russian drones. All developments in the live blog.
According to emergency services, at least seven people were injured in a drone attack in the Russian republic of Tatarstan. The targets were industrial plants in the cities of Yelabuga and Nizhnekamsk, said republican leader Rustam Minnikhanov on his Telegram channel. However, the companies’ “technological process,” as he called it, was not disrupted.
Russian media reports spoke of three suspected Ukrainian drones that attacked the region about 1,200 kilometers from the Ukrainian border. According to Russian information, two drones exploded close to a student dormitory in Yelabuga. Videos in Telegram channels show people throwing themselves to the ground in the face of the explosions.
According to earlier Ukrainian information, Iranian-made “Shahed” combat drones are being produced in a special economic zone in Yelabuga. The students of a technical college work in this factory. In the second city attacked, Nizhnekamsk, there are large oil processing plants belonging to the regional oil company Tatneft.
Belarus says it has started a military exercise on the border with Ukraine and with the EU and NATO states Poland and Lithuania. The three-day exercise in the Gomel and Grodno regions is aimed at training troops to defend the territory, the Belarusian Defense Ministry said on X. The procedures would also be practiced in the event that martial law is imposed.
Belarus is a close ally of Russia. Russia also launched its invasion of Ukraine from Belarusian territory in February 2022. Gomel is located in the southeast of Belarus on the border with Ukraine and is around 280 kilometers from Kiev. The Grodno region is located in western Belarus near the Lithuanian-Polish border.
According to the Reuters news agency, Russian drones carried out attacks on energy facilities in the Ukrainian regions of Dnipropetrovsk and Kirovohrad during the night, hitting a target in the latter region, the Ukrainian operational command “South” said. Separately, the Ukrainian General Staff said air defenses shot down nine out of 10 drones that attacked the country overnight.
South Korea imposes additional sanctions on two Russian organizations and two Russian individuals over Russia’s support of North Korea’s nuclear and missile programs. This is reported by the South Korean Foreign Ministry. The country also wants to impose sanctions on two Russian ships involved in transporting ammunition between North Korea and Russia, the ministry adds.
President Zelensky has described combat drones as a crucial factor in the war against Russia. The Association of Cities and Municipalities is calling for more speed in the integration of refugee Ukrainians into the labor market. The developments to read.