Ukraine targeted the Russian capital on Tuesday in its biggest drone attack so far, killing at least one and wrecking dozens of homes in the Moscow region and forcing around 50 flights to be diverted from airports around Moscow.
Ukraine loses more than $11-billion annually in gross domestic product due to landmines laid since Russia’s invasion, which create no-go areas and so reduce exports and taxes, according to a report that calls for new approaches to aid and demining.
Russia had received ballistic missiles from Iran and was likely to use them in Ukraine within weeks, said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday, warning that cooperation between Moscow and Tehran threatened wider European security.
Ukraine targets Moscow in biggest drone attack yet
Ukraine targeted the Russian capital on Tuesday in its biggest drone attack so far, killing at least one and wrecking dozens of homes in the Moscow region and forcing around 50 flights to be diverted from airports around Moscow.
Russia, the world’s biggest nuclear power, said it had destroyed at least 20 Ukrainian attack drones as they swarmed over the Moscow region, which has a population of more than 21 million, and 124 more over eight other regions.
At least one person was killed near Moscow, Russian authorities said. Three of Moscow’s four airports were closed for more than six hours and almost 50 flights were diverted.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters that the drone attack was another reminder of the real nature of Ukraine’s political leadership, which he said was made up of Russia’s enemies.
“There is no way that nighttime strikes on residential neighbourhoods can be associated with military action,” said Peskov.
“The Kyiv regime continues to demonstrate its nature. They are our enemies and we must continue the special military operation to protect ourselves from such actions,” he said, using the expression Moscow uses to describe its war in Ukraine.
Kyiv said Russia, which sent tens of thousands of troops into Ukraine in February 2022, had attacked it overnight with 46 drones, of which 38 were destroyed.
The drone attacks on Russia damaged high-rise apartment buildings in the Ramenskoye district of the Moscow region, setting flats on fire, residents told Reuters.
A 46-year-old woman was killed and three people were wounded in Ramenskoye, Moscow regional governor Andrei Vorobyov said.
Residents said they awoke to blasts and fire.
“I looked at the window and saw a ball of fire,” Alexander Li, a resident of the district told Reuters. “The window got blown out by the shockwave.”
Georgy, a resident who declined to give his surname, said he heard a drone buzzing outside his building in the early hours.
“I drew back the curtain and it hit the building right before my eyes, I saw it all,” he said. “I took my family and we ran outside.”
The Ramenskoye district, some 50km southeast of the Kremlin, has a population of around a quarter of a million people, according to official data.
More than 70 drones were also downed over Russia’s Bryansk region and tens more over other regions, said Russia’s defence ministry. There was no damage or casualties reported there.
As Russia advances in eastern Ukraine, Kyiv has taken the war to Russia with a cross-border attack into Russia’s western Kursk region that began on 6 August and by carrying out increasingly large drone attacks deep into Russian territory.
The war has largely been a grinding artillery and drone war along the heavily fortified 1,000km frontline in southern and eastern Ukraine involving hundreds of thousands of soldiers.
Moscow and Kyiv have both sought to buy and develop new drones, deploy them in innovative ways, and seek new ways to destroy them — from using shotguns to advanced electronic jamming systems.
Both sides have turned cheap commercial drones into deadly weapons while ramping up their production and assembly to attack targets including tanks and energy infrastructure such as refineries and airfields.
Russia has hit Ukraine with thousands of missiles and drones in the past 2½ years, killing thousands of civilians, wrecking much of the country’s energy system and damaging commercial and residential properties across the country.
Landmines cost Ukraine $11bn in GDP each year, says report
Ukraine loses more than $11-billion annually in gross domestic product due to landmines laid since Russia’s invasion, which create no-go areas and so reduce exports and taxes, according to a report that calls for new approaches to aid and demining.
The invasion has turned Ukraine into the world’s most heavily mined country, according to a February 2024 estimate by the United Nations and the Ukrainian government.
The report by Ukraine’s Economy Ministry and the Tony Blair Institute for Global Change said that the presence of landmines posed challenges for Ukraine’s economy and post-war recovery and also contributed to global food insecurity.
“This is not just a Ukrainian issue; it is a global imperative,” said Tony Blair, TBI executive chairperson.
“The world must rally behind the urgent demining of Ukraine, not only to support Ukraine’s economic resilience and recovery but also to ensure the stability of food supply for hundreds of millions of the most vulnerable people across the globe.”
The report showed that at current levels, landmines and explosive remnants of the war suppressed Ukraine’s GDP by $11.2-billion each year — equivalent roughly to 5.6% of national wealth as measured by gross domestic product in 2021.
Ukraine’s economy shrank by about a third in the first year of the war, and while it returned to growth in 2023 and 2024 economists estimate the country’s GDP remains smaller than before the full-scale 2022 invasion.
The most heavily affected regions were the northeastern Kharkiv and Sumy regions, the Chernihiv region in the north, and Mykolayiv in the south.
The study showed that due to the mines, regional tax revenues were about $1.1-billion lower and the value of Ukrainian exports was reduced by about $8.9-billion.
As of September about 139,300 square km of land across Ukraine — an area larger than England — were mined, the report showed.
The World Bank has estimated that about $34.6-billion would be required to demine Ukraine safely.
US says Russia received missiles from Iran, piles on sanctions
Russia had received ballistic missiles from Iran and was likely to use them in Ukraine within weeks, said US Secretary of State Antony Blinken on Tuesday, warning that cooperation between Moscow and Tehran threatened wider European security.
At a news conference in London ahead of a visit to Kyiv he and Britain’s Foreign Secretary David Lammy will make, Blinken said Washington had privately warned Iran that providing ballistic missiles to Russia would be “a dramatic escalation” and said new sanctions would be imposed later on Tuesday.
“Russia has now received shipments with these ballistic missiles, and will likely use them within weeks in Ukraine, against Ukraine,” said Blinken, citing intelligence that he said had been shared with US allies and partners around the world.
The US later identified nine Russian-flagged vessels it said were involved in the delivery of weapons from Iran to Russia, designating them as “blocked property” under Washington’s sanctions regime, according to the Treasury Department’s website.
It also imposed additional measures on previously sanctioned airline Iran Air, the department said in a statement.
Blinken said Iran had trained dozens of Russian military personnel to use its Fath-360 close-range ballistic missile system, which has a maximum range of 121km.
Iran has previously supplied Shahed drones used by Russia in Ukraine, but has denied that it is supplying Russia with ballistic missiles. Foreign Ministry spokesperson Nasser Kanaani on Tuesday said on X that Iran viewed the reports as “ugly propaganda” to conceal Western military support for Israel.
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov declined to confirm the reports but told reporters Russia was cooperating with Iran including on “the most sensitive” areas.
Iran is already one of the most heavily sanctioned countries in the world, and some experts have questioned the benefit of adding more economic penalties that can hurt the middle class more than the country’s leaders.
The Treasury and the State Department imposed sanctions on 10 individuals and nine entities based in Iran and Russia, the Treasury said.
The sanctions freeze any US assets held by those targeted, denying them access, and generally bar Americans from dealing with them.
France, Germany and Britain also issued a joint statement condemning Iran and Russia for what they called an escalation, and pledging to impose sanctions on Iran Air and cancel air services agreements with Iran.
Britain announced seven new sanctions designations under its Iran sanctions regime and three under its Russia regime.
Ukraine could cut ties with Iran over missile deliveries to Russia
Kyiv said on Tuesday it could cut ties with Tehran if Russia used ballistic missiles supplied by Iran to attack Ukraine, and it denounced any such delivery of the weapons as “unacceptable”.
Ukraine, which has already been grappling with an increase in Russian missile and drone attacks, has said there would be devastating consequences for its bilateral ties with Iran if reports of the missile supplies were confirmed.
“I will not say now exactly what is meant by devastating consequences, so as not to weaken our diplomatic position. But I can say that all options, including the one you mentioned, are on the table,” said foreign ministry spokesperson Heorhiy Tykhyi when asked if Kyiv could cut ties with Tehran.
Ukraine downgraded ties with Iran in 2022 over Tehran’s supply of unmanned Shahed attack drones to Russia, which Moscow troops have since used for regular long-range attacks.
Russia to spend $660m to bolster internet censorship system
Russia’s digital development ministry plans to allocate nearly 60 billion roubles ($660-million) over the next five years to improve the system used to censor web traffic, a government proposal seen by Reuters shows.
The system, called TSPU, consists of homegrown traffic management tools that are developed, distributed and controlled by state communications regulator Roskomnadzor, according to researchers at Censored Planet, a project tracking global online censorship.
The document, entitled Cybersecurity Infrastructure, was first reported by Forbes Russia.
It allocates roughly $660-million from Russia’s federal budget between 2025 and 2030 to purchase new equipment and software for TSPU, as well as to “expand its capabilities by developing new signatures and updating existing ones”.
The proposal to modernise TSPU, short for Technical Measures to Combat Threats, is part of a yearslong effort by Roskomnadzor to exert control over what Russians read and see online.
The initiative’s scope indicates that Moscow is giving greater priority to upgrading its internet censorship architecture amid a crackdown on free expression spurred by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in 2022.
Sweden appoints new foreign minister with focus on backing Ukraine
Sweden appointed Maria Malmer Stenergard as foreign minister on Tuesday, choosing the former migration chief to lead policy on Ukraine just six months after her predecessor helped secure traditionally non-aligned Sweden’s accession to Nato.
Tobias Billstrom’s surprise announcement last week that he was stepping down has led to a broad Cabinet reshuffle in which several ministers have been moved.
Nato’s newest member is, like much of Europe, trying to boost its military while also being a strong supporter of Ukraine since Russia’s invasion in February 2022. Sweden announced its 17th aid package this week.
“The support for Ukraine is the greatest foreign policy task for the coming years,” Prime Minister Ulf Kristersson said in a speech to the new session of parliament as he outlined his policy priorities.
“Sweden will support Ukraine for as long as it takes.”
Malmer Stenergard (43), from Kristersson’s ruling right-wing Moderate Party, was the face of the government’s overhaul of immigration policies, a radical shift taken in cooperation with the far-right Sweden Democrats that has been criticised by some human rights advocates.
The new foreign minister told a news conference it was important to keep up pressure on Russia with sanctions and to work towards Ukrainian EU membership.
EU vows ‘strong response’ to Iran missile transfer to Russia
The transfer of Iranian ballistic missiles to Russia represented a further military escalation and would be met with a “strong response” from the European Union, EU foreign affairs spokesperson Peter Stano said on Tuesday.
Stano said the EU’s diplomatic service, at the request of foreign policy chief Josep Borrell, had already presented EU members with “a substantial set of decisive and targeted measures” against Iran in response to the transfer.
Any such measures would have to be agreed by all of the EU’s 27 members to take effect, added Stano.
“We confirm [we[ have received credible information about the delivery of Iranian ballistic missiles to Russia,” he said.
He said the transfer contravened the UN Charter, international law and international humanitarian law.
Russia ‘close to signing new bilateral treaty with Iran’
Russia had nearly completed the required procedures to sign a new bilateral treaty with Iran soon, state news agency Tass quoted top security official Sergei Shoigu as saying on Tuesday.
“We look forward to the imminent conclusion of a new basic interstate treaty. We are completing the internal procedures necessary for the preparation of documents for signing by the presidents,” said Shoigu.
Russia has cultivated closer ties with Iran and other states hostile towards the United States, such as North Korea, in the 2½ years since the start of the Ukraine war.
Ukraine’s talks with IMF are ‘difficult’, says prime minister
Talks with the International Monetary Fund (IMF) regarding Ukraine’s financing needs were proving difficult, said Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal on Tuesday, despite Ukraine’s continued economic growth.
Despite nearly 31 months of fighting since Russia’s February 2022 invasion, Kyiv has managed to maintain macroeconomic and financial stability, backed by nearly $100-billion in economic aid from its Western partners.
The IMF’s monitoring mission is in Kyiv this week for the fifth review of its $15.6-billion lending programme to Ukraine.
Shmyhal said the discussion of financing plans for 2025 had been “difficult” and “complicated”, without elaborating on what the stumbling blocks were.
The IMF and Ukraine’s government have been discussing possible tax increases to boost revenues and reduce an expected budget deficit of $35-billion next year — only $20-billion of which is covered.
The government also needs funds to cover about $12.2-billion in defence spending for the remainder of this year.
Shmyhal said the government’s main priorities were to provide budget financing for the army, maintain macroeconomic stability and ensure energy resilience during the winter.
Continued cooperation with the IMF was key to ensuring predictable and sustainable financing for Ukraine both this year and next, he added.
Kyiv identifies Russian suspect in attack on children’s hospital
Ukraine’s prosecutor-general said on Tuesday that Kyiv suspected a senior Russian air force commander of ordering a missile strike on a children’s hospital in central Kyiv in July that killed two people and caused extensive damage.
Shortly after the announcement, Ukraine’s SBU security service identified the suspect as Lieutenant General Sergei Kobylash, who it said was the commander of Russia’s long-range aviation forces at the time of the attack.
It said in a statement he had since been promoted to head the air force.
In March, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for Kobylash, saying at that time that he was suspected of war crimes including ordering strikes on Ukraine’s energy system.
Russia denies carrying out war crimes in Ukraine and says it does not target civilians.
“We are continuing the investigation to find other people responsible for the strike on Okhmatdyt,” Kostin told reporters, referring to the hospital. DM