Drones attack Russian city of Taganrog, officials say
A drone attack targeted the southern Russian city of Taganrog on Wednesday, Russian officials said.
“Attention! UAV attack. If possible, go down to the lower floors, to the basement. Find a place without windows, sit on the floor,” Andrei Fateyev, the head of the city administration, said on Telegram Wednesday.
Law enforcement officers cordon off the site of an explosion in the southwestern Russian city of Taganrog on July 28, 2023. Russia said on July 28, 2023 it intercepted two Ukrainian missiles over its southern Rostov region bordering Ukraine, with at least a dozen people wounded by debris falling on the city of Taganrog.
Stringer | Afp | Getty Images
Taganrog, which is located in the Rostov region of southern Russia, is one of a number of Russian towns and cities to be targeted by drone attacks in recent months. The governor of the Rostov region, Vasily Golubev, described the latest purported attack as “massive.”
Russia accuses Ukraine of routinely attacking its territory although Kyiv rarely comments on such assaults. Officials in Taganrog say the city has been targeted with drones and missiles before. Kyiv has not commented on the latest accusation.
— Holly Ellyatt
More than 300 homes flooded in Russia’s Orenburg as Ural River continues to rise
A picture taken on April 8, 2024 shows rescuers evacuating residents from the flooded part of the city of Orsk, Russia’s Orenburg region, southeast of the southern tip of the Ural Mountains.
Anatoliy Zhdanov | Afp | Getty Images
More than 300 homes have been flooded in the southern Russian city of Orenburg after rapidly melting snow from the Ural Mountains caused the region’s worst flooding in decades.
Authorities warned overnight that the situation in Orenburg is dangerous and ordered the evacuation of more than 100,000 by late Wednesday.
The Ural River, Europe’s third-longest, rose by another 20 inches from its critical level of 30 feet late on Tuesday. The river flows through Russia and Kazakhstan and into the Caspian Sea, and the situation is expected to worsen through Thursday.
— Elliot Smith
Russian-controlled nuclear plant accuses Ukraine of another drone strike
A view of the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant in southern Ukraine on June 15, 2023.
Olga Maltseva | Afp | Getty Images
Officials at the Russian-controlled Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant in southern Ukraine on Tuesday accused Kyiv of another drone attack, claiming an unmanned aerial vehicle fell on the roof of its training center.
Ukraine has denied any knowledge of a series of drone attacks on Europe’s largest nuclear plant in recent days that prompted the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to sound the alarm over nuclear security.
Moscow has repeatedly accused Ukraine of being behind the attacks, but a spokesman for Ukraine’s military intelligence service said on national TV Tuesday that Ukraine does “not commit any military actions or provocations on nuclear facilities,” according to Reuters.
Ukrainian intelligence officials have also accused Russia of using the seized nuclear site as a platform for “propaganda.”
— Elliot Smith
Ukraine shot down 14 drones, two guided missiles around Odesa
Ukraine shot down 14 of 17 Shahed drones launched by Russia towards the Black Sea port of Odesa overnight, the country’s air force said on the Telegram messaging app.
Ukrainian air defense forces also destroyed two Kh-59 guided air missiles headed towards Odesa, Air Force Commander Lieutenant General Mykola Oleschuk said. CNBC was unable to immediately verify the claims.
— Elliot Smith
Civilian deaths and injuries in Ukraine sharply increased in March, UN human rights body says
Deaths and injuries amongst civilians in Ukraine jumped 20% in March of this year compared to February, the United Nations human rights body said in a report Tuesday.
At least 604 civilians were killed or injured during the month, the UN Human Rights Monitoring Mission in Ukraine found. This includes at least 57 children, doubling the number when compared to the previous month, it added.
“The March increase in civilian casualties was mainly due to attacks by the Russian armed forces using missiles and loitering munitions across Ukraine and increased aerial bombardments near the frontline,” the report said.
— Sophie Kiderlin
Russia has not been invited to Ukraine summit in Switzerland, embassy says
Russia has not been invited to the planned Ukraine summit in Switzerland, a spokesperson for the Russian embassy in Switzerland confirmed to CNBC.
“The Swiss side did not send Russia an invitation to the conference. At the same time, our position is well known. Even if we receive an invitation to such an event, the Russian side will not accept it,” Vladimir Khokhlov, press secretary at the embassy said.
This is in line with comments previously made by Russian spokespeople, who have said the country would not join the proposed summit and that it was doomed to fail without Moscow’s participation.
“The idea of a ‘peace conference’ promoted by the organizers is inappropriate for us, as it is just another variant of pushing through an unviable ‘peace formula’ that does not take into account Russian concerns,” Khokhlov added.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy and his allies have been working on plans for a Ukraine summit in Switzerland, which would see leaders discuss potential conflict resolution approaches. The talks would likely include Zelenskyy’s 10-point peace formula.
According to Reuters, Zelenskyy over the weekend said a date for the summit could be agreed upon in the coming days or weeks and that 80 to 100 countries would participate.
— Sophie Kiderlin
Two killed by Ukrainian shelling on Russian village, local governor says
A woman and a child were killed by Ukrainian shelling in the Russian village of Klimovo, the local governor Aleksandr Bogomaz said in a post on Telegram on Tuesday, which was Google-translated by CNBC.
Three other civilians were injured and were receiving medical support, while several cars were injured and a fire broke out in a residential building due to the strike, he added. Klimovo is located in western Russia, near the border to both Ukraine and Belarus.
CNBC could not independently verify the report.
— Sophie Kiderlin
Russia, Kazakhstan evacuate over 100,000 people amid worst flooding in decades
Russia and Kazakhstan ordered more than 100,000 people to evacuate after swiftly melting snow swelled mighty rivers beyond bursting point in the worst flooding in the area for at least 70 years.
The deluge of melt water overwhelmed scores of settlements in the Ural Mountains, Siberia and areas of Kazakhstan close to rivers such as the Ural and Tobol, which local officials said had risen by metres in a matter of hours to the highest levels ever recorded.
A screen grab captured from a video shows residents and pets are being evacuated collectively due to flooding after a dam burst in the city of Orsk, Russia on April 6, 2024.
Russian Ministry of Emergency/Anadolu via Getty Images
The Ural River, Europe’s third largest which flows through Russia and Kazakhstan into the Caspian, burst through an embankment dam on Friday, flooding the city of Orsk just south of the Ural Mountains.
Downstream, water levels in Orenburg, a city of around 550,000, were rising.
Sirens in Kurgan, a city on the Tobol river, a tributary of the Irtysh, warned people to evacuate immediately. An emergency was also declared in Tyumen, a major oil producing region of Western Siberia – the largest hydrocarbon basin in the world.
“The difficult days are still ahead for the Kurgan and Tyumen regions,” Kremlin Spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters. “There is a lot of water coming.”
— Reuters
