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Russia said Sunday it had downed Ukrainian drones over five regions, including Moscow, as well as two Ukrainian missiles over the Azov Sea, a day after a large-scale Russian drone attack on Kyiv.

Russia and Ukraine have hit each with drones for months, as Moscow's offensive drags on for a 22nd month, with little significant movement on the front, despite fierce fighting.

Russia said the drones hit the Moscow region, other regions near the capital as well as regions bordering Ukraine.

"Air defense destroyed nine drones over the territory of the Moscow, Tula, Kaluga and Bryansk regions," Russia's defense ministry said early on Sunday.

It later said that another four Ukrainian drones were downed over the Bryansk region, which borders Ukraine, as well as the southwestern Smolensk region and the Tula region, which lies north of Moscow.

The attacks came a day after Ukraine said Russia had launched 75 Iranian-made Shahed drones, mostly aimed at Kyiv, in what it said was a "record" since Moscow's offensive last year.

Ukraine has upped attacks on Russia since launching its counter-offensive this summer, and has hit regions close to fighting zones as well as further inland into Russia, including Moscow itself.

The Russian army also said Sunday it had downed two Ukrainian missiles over the Azov Sea that it said were headed for Russia.

Russia controls the Ukrainian Azov Sea coast, which fell to Moscow early in its offensive last year.

Local authorities in the affected regions did not report casualties.

"I call on refraining to share photographs or videos of the drones on social media," the Smolensk governor Vasily Anokhin wrote on Telegram, adding that emergency services were working in areas that were hit.

Smolensk region, which borders Belarus, has been mostly spared from drone attacks.

On the battlefield, fighting has now focused around the industrial hub of Avdiivka, which appears almost encircled by Russian forces.

The fall of Avdiivka a symbol of Ukrainian resistance since 2014 would be a significant loss for Kyiv.

Ukraine, meanwhile, reported Russian attacks in the south and east of the country.

The head of the southern city of Kherson, Roman Mrochko, said two urban districts were shelled and that information of possible victims was being clarified.

Regional authorities in the Kherson region said around a dozen villages were left without electricity due to bad weather and Russian attacks.

Kyiv has been preparing for weeks for a feared renewal of Moscow's campaign to hit its energy grid in a possible repeat of last year, when thousands were left without power in freezing temperatures.

"Due to bad weather and Russian shelling, a number of settlements in our region were left without electricity," the head of the Kherson region Oleksandr Prokudin said on Telegram.

"Power supply teams are already working to eliminate the malfunctions," he added.

Nearly 400 localities are without electricity in Ukraine due to "extremely difficult" weather conditions, President Volodymyr Zelensky announced.

This comes at a time when "a large part of our country is experiencing extremely difficult weather conditions," he added.

Deputy Head of the Presidential Office Oleksiy Kuleba warned that the weather was worsening with heavy snowfalls expected in the Kyiv, Chernihiv, Cherkasy and Odesa regions.

Fearing that global attention has shifted to the Israel-Hamas conflict, Ukraine has called on the West to supply more weapons to counter Moscow's forces as the winter settles in.

Saturday's large-scale attack on Ukraine, which affected central Kyiv areas, came the day Ukraine marked Holodomor the starvation of millions in Ukraine during the Stalin era.

It also came as Ukraine is marking 10 years since its pro-EU Maidan revolution.

Shortly after Ukrainians overthrew a Moscow-backed regime in 2014, Russia annexed the Crimea peninsula and backed separatists in eastern Ukraine.

Russia continues to see the Maidan revolution as illegitimate and when it launched its full-scale offensive in February last year, it aimed to install a different government in Ukraine.

"In Kyiv 10 years ago there was a coup with the use of force, the legitimate authorities were overthrown," Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said Sunday.

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Russia Says Downed Ukrainian Drones Over 5 Regions - The Moscow Times

Ukraine attacked Russian military targets with about 35 drones overnight on Nov. 26 in response to Russia's mass Shahed attack against Ukraine a day earlier, Ukrainska Pravda reported, citing a military intelligence source.

Ukraine's drones were aimed at targets in Moscow and its region, as well as in Tula and Smolensk. Russia claimed that it had shot down 24 Ukrainian drones.

According to Ukrainska Pravda's source, the attack is a signal to Russia that its strikes against civilians in Ukraine will be met with consequences.

"The war must be fought with the military in the war zones. Strikes on civilians and outside the war zone will not go unanswered," source said as cited by the media.

On the morning of Nov. 25, Russia struck Ukraine with 75 Shahed kamikaze drones, mainly targeting Kyiv. Ukrainian air defense reported bringing down 74 of them.

As a result of the six-hour attack, at least two people were injured and several residential and non-residential buildings were damaged across the capital.

Shaheds are an Iranian design cheap, simple, long-range kamikaze drones, which have steadily replaced missiles in Russia's mass strikes, especially after thousands of advanced missiles had been fired.

Both Russia and Ukraine produce and field their own takes on the design.

Russia launches record number of drones against Ukraine on Holodomor Memorial Day

Russia launched a record number of drones into Ukraine over the course of six hours on Holodomor Memorial Day on Nov. 25. According to the Kyiv City Military Administration, this was the largest drone attack since the beginning of the full-scale invasion.

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Media: Ukraine retaliated against Russia's mass attack with 35-drone-strike - Kyiv Independent

[1/2]Ukrainian servicemen move past a burning car hit by a kamikaze drone outside the front line town of Avdiivka, amid Russia's attack on Ukraine, in Donetsk region, Ukraine November 8, 2023. Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty/Serhii Nuzhnenko via REUTERS Acquire Licensing Rights

KYIV, Nov 26 (Reuters) - President Volodymyr Zelenskiy on Sunday thanked Ukraine's military for fighting Russian attacks and its rescue services for tackling the consequences of extreme winter weather that he said had deprived about 400 settlements in 10 regions of power.

In his nightly video address, Zelenskiy said relentless, intense battles were ongoing in the eastern regions of Donetsk and Kharkiv, while "extremely challenging weather" was affecting areas from Kyiv region in the north to Odesa in the south.

In Russian-controlled territory, Oleg Kryuchkov, a senior Moscow-installed official, said nearly half a million people were without power in Crimea, the peninsula Russia annexed in 2014.

The Russian-installed heads of Crimea, of the Black Sea port of Sevastopol, and of the part of Kherson region under Moscow's control, declared days off for Monday amid reports of high winds, flooded homes and snowbound roads, and damaged buildings.

Ukraine's border service said Moldova had temporarily suspended vehicle access to its territory from two crossing points in Odesa region. Moldovan authorities also asked local schools to consider closing due to snowfall and high winds.

Odesa Mayor Henadii Trukhanov urged residents of his Black Sea port to stay at home. Local authorities warned that water supplies were being interrupted by power cuts that stopped pumps from working and urged people to preserve supplies.

Power grid operator Ukrenergo shared a photograph of a transmission tower in Odesa region whose leg had snapped in two due to high winds, adding, "We are doing everything possible to overcome the consequences of the bad weather as soon as possible and restore light to every home."

Reporting by Oleksandr Kozhukhar in Kyiv, Alexander Tanas in Chisinau and Elaine Monaghan in Washington; Editing by Alexander Smith and David Gregorio

Our Standards: The Thomson Reuters Trust Principles.

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Zelenskiy praises Ukrainians for battles with Russia and the weather - Reuters

A Ukrainian politician said Russia proposed ending the war if Ukraine abandoned its NATO ambitions.

Russia made the proposal during peace talks soon after the full-scale invasion began.

"There is no, and there was no, trust in the Russians that they would do it," the politician said.

Russia offered to stop its invasion of Ukraine on the condition that Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's government abandon its ambition to join NATO, the Kyiv Post reported.

David Arakhamia, the leader of the Servant of the People party and the head of the Ukrainian delegation in the talks, said that Russia had proposed a resolution to the conflict in spring 2022.

The peace talks took place during the early stages of the full-scale war on the border of Ukraine and Belarus and in Turkey.

The Russian delegation reportedly proposed ending the war if Ukraine dropped its NATO aspirations and took a neutral position.

Arakhamia said that a shift toward neutrality would require a constitutional change, considering Ukraine's current constitutional commitment to NATO membership.

Arakhamia told Natalia Moseychuk, a Ukrainian journalist, that Russia saw Ukraine's neutrality as a key condition for a potential peace agreement. "They really hoped almost to the last that they would put the squeeze on us to sign such an agreement so that we would take neutrality. It was the biggest thing for them," he said.

Arakhamia said there was a lack of trust in Russia's sincerity. "There is no, and there was no, trust in the Russians that they would do it. That could only be done if there were security guarantees," he explained.

Signing an agreement without such assurances, Arakhamia argued, would leave Ukraine vulnerable to a potential second incursion because it would have given Russia an opportunity to regroup and prepare for another round of military aggression.

Former British Prime Minister Boris Johnson's unexpected visit to Kyiv on April 9, 2022, had an impact on the potential cease-fire. Johnson advised against signing any agreement with Russia and encouraged Ukraine to continue the fight. Arakhamia recalled Johnson's stance, saying Ukraine "shouldn't sign anything with them at all and let's just fight."

While both sides expressed readiness for a meeting between Zelenskyy and Russian President Vladimir Putin, discussions abruptly halted when Russian troops retreated from Kyiv. The withdrawal exposed the extent of apparent war crimes committed, including the Bucha massacre.

Three days after Johnson's departure from Kyiv, Putin publicly declared that talks with Ukraine had "turned into a dead end."

NATO expansion has been underway since the beginning of the war, with the formerly neutral Finland joining in April.

Business Insider reported in January that Putin's decision to invade Ukraine was a miscalculation because the war backfired by uniting NATO in support of Ukraine.

While the bloc has been a crucial ally to Ukraine, there is a reluctance to initiate Ukrainian membership while the country is at war. The US opposes extending NATO membership to Ukraine in the immediate future to avoid escalating the West's tensions with Russia.

Read the original article on Business Insider

Excerpt from:
Russia offered to end its invasion of Ukraine if it dumped plans to join NATO, but Kyiv feared a double cross, says negotiator - Yahoo! Voices

Lieutenant General Serhii Naiev, Commander of the Joint Forces of the Armed Forces of Ukraine, believes that Russias war against Ukraine could once again spread beyond the country's east and south, especially if Russia continues to ramp up weapons manufacturing and improve the technologies available to it with the help of its allies, or if Ukraines allies reduce the amount of aid they give it.

Source: Serhii Naiev in an ABC News interview

Quote: "We understand that there is currently a resource war going on. The Russian Federation gets its resources with the help of the Axis of Evil it is North Korea, it is Iran. And we, with the help of our partners, receiving air defense equipment from them, are opposing the Russian Federation with their resources.

It must be understood that the reduction of aid will really hit our defense capabilities. But we will fight with what we have."

Details: Naiev warned that if Russia continues to increase weapons production and improve technologically with the help of its allies, war could again expand beyond Ukraine's east and south.

"We are getting ready for that," he said. "Were building defenses, putting mines, and training our forces."

ABC News reported that the Ukrainian Air Force and Defence Intelligence estimate that Russia fired more than 800 drones on Ukraine in the last two months, "having kept around 870 cruise and ballistic missiles in stock for major attacks against the countrys energy infrastructure".

"Technology is critical. The target for which, according to the old Soviet-style technologies, it was necessary to spend 100 shells with the help of Western technologies, much less is needed, and it is measured in numbers up to ten, so the technology always outweighs the number. And I will emphasize once again that this help is very, very important to us," Naiev said.

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Ukraine preparing for possibility of war spreading beyond its east and south Ukraine's Joint Forces Commander - Yahoo News