KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Germany’s president arrived in Kyiv on Tuesday for his first visit to Ukraine since the start of Russia’s invasion, as Western countries mulled a massive plan for Ukrainian rebuilding when the war eventually ends.
President Frank-Walter Steinmeier said after arriving that “it was important to me in this phase of air attacks with drones, cruise missiles and rockets to send a signal of solidarity to Ukrainians.”
Eight months of pummeling by the Kremlin’s forces has ruined homes, public buildings and the power grid. The World Bank estimates the damage to Ukraine so far at 350 billion euros ($345 billion).
Last week, a planned trip was put off because of security concerns. Steinmeier’s visit came as Ukrainians are bracing for less electric power this winter following a sustained Russian barrage on their infrastructure in recent weeks. Germany, EU launch work on 'new Marshall Plan' for Ukraine. In Berlin, meanwhile...
Even so, one of Moscow’s allies on Tuesday urged
Ramzan Kadyrov, the regional leader of Chechnya who has sent troops from the region to fight in Ukraine, urged Moscow to wipe off the map entire cities in retaliation for Ukrainian shelling of Russia’s territory. Authorities in Russia’s Kursk and Belgorod regions that border Ukraine have repeatedly reported Ukrainian shelling that damaged infrastructure and residential buildings.
“Our response has been too weak,” Kadyrov said in a statement posted on his messaging app channel. “If a shell flies into our region, entire cities must be wiped off the face of the Earth so that they don’t ever think that they can fire in our direction.”
Ukrainian authorities, meanwhile, sought to ease public fears over Ukraine’s forces have shot down more than two-thirds of the approximately 330 Shahed drones that Russia has fired through Saturday. Ukraine’s intelligence as Russia’s ordered about 1,700 drones of different types and is rolling out a 2nd batch of about 300 Shaheds.
As Iran deny Iranian-built drones have been used, the triangle-shaped Shahed-136s have rained down on civilians in Kyiv and elsewhere.
Britain’s Ministry of Defense said Russia was likely to use a large number of drones to try to penetrate the “increasingly effective Ukrainian air defenses” — to substitute for Russian-made long-range precision weapons “which are becoming increasingly scarce.”
Russia’s “artillery ammunition is running low.” Russians Ukrainian guerrillas reportedly staged several explosions in a Russian-held southern city.
A car bomb exploded Tuesday near an office building that houses the headquarters of the Federal Security Service, Russia’s top security agency
Melitopol is in the Zaporizhzhia region, part of which was captured by the Russian military early in the invasion. It was illegally annexed by Russia last month along with three other regions of Ukraine.
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