Ukraine’s capital Kyiv has woke to blasts and air raid sirens on Wednesday, according to reports from local officials who said the city had been attacked by Iranian-made “Shahed” drones.
Oleksii Kuleba, the head of the Kyiv regional military administration, warned residents that the air alert remained in place and that civilians should shelter. “The air alert continues. The danger remains. Stay in shelters,” he said.
It’s unknown what structures the drone attacks were targeting but Kuleba said “Russia continues the energy terror of the country.”
In other news, snap Belarusian military drills that began on Tuesday sparked concerns about an escalation of the war in Ukraine, although Ukraine’s armed forces said they have not yet seen signs of the “formation of enemy offensive groups” along the Belarus-Ukraine border.
Ukrainian and Polish military officials discussed the “security situation on the Ukrainian-Belarusian border” after the check on the combat-readiness of troops in Belarus, according to NBC News, and agreed to coordinate joint action in the days ahead.
Belarus borders Ukraine to the north and Poland to the east. While Belarusian President Alexander Lukashenko has repeatedly said his country will not join the war, Belarus is Russia’s ally and has allowed it to launch attacks on Ukraine from its territory.
Russian oil exports added 270,000 barrels per day from October to a seven-month high of 8.1 million barrels per day in November, the Paris-based International Energy Agency (IEA) said today in its latest Oil Market Report.
Crude oil loadings were unchanged on the month, the agency found, estimating Russian export revenues shed $0.7 billions to $15.8 billions “on lower prices and wider discounts for Russian-origin products.”
November was the last month before the implementation of a Dec. 5 EU ban on seaborne Russian crude oil exports.
— Ruxandra Iordache
13 Iranian-made drones shot down in Kyiv, no casualties reported
Ukrainian officials issued an update on drone attacks that struck the capital Wednesday morning, saying the number of Iranian-made “Shahed” drones shot down has risen from 10 to 13.
“Kyiv suffered two waves of attack by enemy drones,” Serhii Popko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration, said on Telegram Wednesday.
Rescuers and police experts examine the remains of a drone following a strike on an administrative building in Kyiv on Dec. 14, 2022.Sergei Supinsky | Afp | Getty Images
“Thanks to the effective work of the air defense and EW (electronic warfare) units, 13 enemy drones were destroyed.” He said the unmanned aerial vehicles had hit one administrative building (an earlier report suggested two administrative buildings had been damaged) and four residential buildings had suffered minor damage in the Shevchenkivsky district of the capital.
“People were not injured,” he said.
— Holly Ellyatt
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