Russia ‘foils’ more drone attacks

Russia yesterday said that it shot down two drones over its Belgorod region and one headed for Moscow, as it reported Ukrainian shelling wounded six people in a border town.

Russia and the Moscow-annexed Crimean peninsula have been hit by a wave of attacks in the past month, after Kyiv warned in July it aimed to "return" the conflict to Russian territory.

The Russian defence ministry said one drone was destroyed close to the border in Belgorod region at 09:00 (0600 GMT), while another was intercepted over the region at 14:15 (1115 GMT).

A separate drone headed for Moscow in the early hours of the morning was also thwarted, the defence ministry said.

Moscow, which was rarely attacked during the early stages of the conflict, is now being targeted by almost daily drone strikes.

"Tonight, air defence forces destroyed a drone on approach to Moscow in the Istrinskii district," the capital's mayor Sergei Sobyanin wrote on Telegram.

"Preliminarily, there were no casualties or damage. Emergency services are working on the site," he added.

The drone attacks came as the governor of Russia's Belgorod region said Kyiv shelled the town of Urazovo, about 10 kilometres (six miles) from the Ukrainian border, injuring six people.

Russian regions bordering Ukraine have regularly accused Kyiv's armed forces of indiscriminate shelling and occasional cross-border incursions by Ukrainian-backed militants.

Meanwhile, two people were killed and one wounded yesterday after Russian forces shelled a village near the town of Kupiansk in Ukraine's northeastern Kharkiv region, hitting a cafe, officials said.

In another development, the second ship to leave Ukraine's port city of Odesa since Moscow's withdrawal from the Black Sea grain deal set sail for Bulgaria yesterday, Ukrainian lawmaker Oleksiy Honcharenko said on the Telegram app.

Honcharenko posted a photograph of what he said was the ship leaving the port.

The Liberia-flagged bulk carrier Primus is moving from Odesa to the port of Varna in Bulgaria, news agency Interfax Ukraine reported citing the MarineTraffic database.

Odesa's three seaports shipped tens of millions of tons of grain during Russia's invasion under a UN-brokered deal which collapsed in July after Moscow withdrew. Russian forces have since targeted Ukrainian ports with volleys of missiles and kamikaze drones.

Meanwhile, Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov yesterday said Russia's military cooperation with Iran will not succumb to geopolitical pressure, following a report that Washington has asked Teheran to stop selling drones to Moscow.

"There are no changes, and cooperation with Iran will continue," Ryabkov said, according to a report on Saturday from Russian state news agency RIA. "We are independent states and do not succumb to the dictates of the United States and its satellites."