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Online footage show jet on fire as Ukrainian security expert claims it was shot down
Russian missile and drone attacks overnight damaged Ukrainian thermal and hydro power plants, electricity grid operator Ukrenergo said on Friday. There were emergency shutdowns in the south-eastern Dnipropetrovsk region. The Dnipropetrovsk governor, Serhii Lysak, said “critical infrastructure” was bombed and a man taken to hospital. Explosions were heard in Ukraine’s Ivano-Frankivsk and Khmelnytskyi regions and the city of Dnipro after Russian cruise missiles were spotted, national media outlet Suspilne reported.
Poland scrambled planes as Ukraine came under missile attack on Friday morning, the Polish defence force said. The operational command said Polish and allied aircraft were activated due to “intense activity of long-range aviation of the Russian Federation” related to missile strikes against targets in Ukraine.
A Russian SU-35 Flanker fighter jet has crashed into the sea off Sevastopol, Crimea. Footage online showed a jet on fire, spiralling into the ocean and exploding. The Russian-installed governor of the illegally occupied region, Mikhail Razvozhayev, said on Thursday the pilot ejected and was picked up by rescuers but gave no details as to the cause of the crash.
Volodymyr Zelenskiy, the Ukrainian president, told the speaker of the US House of Representatives during a phone call on Thursday that it was vital for Congress to pass a new military aid package for Ukraine. Mike Johnson, the speaker, has held up a bill for months that would supply $60bn in military and financial aid.
“We recognise that there are differing views in the House of Representatives on how to proceed, but the key is to keep the issue of aid to Ukraine as a unifying factor,” Zelenskiy said.
Zelenskiy said he briefed Johnson about the situation on the battlefield and also spoke about “the dramatic increase in Russia’s air terror”. The Ukrainian military later said that its top commander, Oleksander Syrskyi, spoke to the US chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Charles Brown, about battlefield issues.
Zelenskiy, in a CBS interview, has warned that Vladimir Putin will push Russia’s war “very quickly” on to Nato soil unless he is stopped in Ukraine. Zelenskiy acknowledged that his troops are not prepared to defend against another imminent major Russian offensive, and highlighted the urgency for American Patriot missile defence systems and more artillery.
The US is telling American companies making and selling parts that can be used in missiles and drones to stop shipping their goods to more than 600 foreign parties who might divert them to Russia. The parts have been found in Russian munitions recovered in Ukraine.
A Russian court on Thursday sentenced journalist Mikhail Feldman to two years in prison for denouncing Moscow’s full-scale military offensive on Ukraine.
Against the backdrop of war in Ukraine, several central and eastern European countries began marking on Thursday the 20th anniversary of the largest expansion of Nato when formerly socialist countries became members.
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