Odesa
\nRussia and Ukraine launched more than a dozen drones at each other\u2019s territory for a second day on Sunday, one of which apparently targeted a Russian military airport, while a Ukrainian civilian was killed after drone debris slammed into his house near the Black Sea.
\nAt least 35 Ukrainian drones were shot down overnight over three regions in south-western Russia, the Russian defence ministry said in a post on the messaging app Telegram.
\nA Russian airbase hosting bomber aircraft used in Ukraine was among the targets, according to a Russian Telegram channel critical of the Kremlin. The channel posted short videos of drones flying over low-rise housing in what it claimed was the Russian town of Morozovsk, whose airbase is home to Russia\u2019s 559th bomber aviation regiment.
\nVasily Golubev, the governor of Russia\u2019s Rostov province, also reported \u201cmass drone strikes\u201d near Morozovsk and another town farther west, but did not mention the airbase. Golubev said most the drones were shot down and there were no casualties. He did not comment on any damage.
\nAlso on Sunday morning, Ukraine\u2019s air force said it shot down 20 Iranian-made Shahed drones launched overnight by Russian troops in southern and western Ukraine, as well as one X-59 cruise missile launched from Russian-occupied Ukraine in the south.
\nA civilian was killed overnight near Odesa, a key port on Ukraine\u2019s southern Black Sea, after the remnants of a destroyed drone fell on his house, Ukraine\u2019s military said.
\nIncreasing drone attacks by both sides over the past month come as they are keen to show they are not deadlocked as the war approaches the two-year mark. Russia\u2019s defence ministry on Friday evening said its anti-aircraft units destroyed 32 Ukrainian drones over the Crimean peninsula, which Moscow annexed from Ukraine in 2014. Ukraine\u2019s air force on Saturday said it had shot down 30 out of 31 drones launched by Russia against 11 Ukrainian regions the previous night.
\nNeither side has gained much ground despite a Ukrainian counteroffensive that began in June.
\nUkraine\u2019s foreign ministerhas welcomed what he called a sea -hange in Germany\u2019s approach toward his country\u2019s EU membership bid.
\nIn an interview with Bild newspaper, Dmytro Kuleba said that Olaf Scholz, Germany\u2019s chancellor, has won \u201csincere and well-deserved admiration\u201d among Ukrainians for his role in the EU\u2019s decision to open membership talks for Kyiv.
\nUkraine has faced strong opposition in its attempts to join the bloc from Viktor Orb\u00e1n, Hungary\u2019s prime minister, who has spoken repeatedly of his desire to maintain close ties with Russia.
\nScholz said that at an EU summit last week he proposed that Orb\u00e1n leave the room to enable the summit to launch accession talks with Ukraine, something the Hungarian leader agreed to do.
\n\u201cWhat German chancellor Olaf Scholz did at the summit to remove the threatened Hungarian veto will go down in history as an act of German leadership in the interests of Europe. The chancellor has this week won a lot of sincere and well-deserved admiration in the hearts of Ukrainians,\u201d Kuleba told the newspaper.
\nHe also voiced hope that Scholz\u2019s actions would mark a \u201cbroader and irreversible shift\u201d in Berlin\u2019s approach towards EU negotiations with Kyiv.
\n\u201cWhen I campaigned in Berlin last May to grant Ukraine EU candidate status, my appeals to Germany to take the lead in this process mostly fell on deaf ears. \u2018Germany doesn\u2019t want to lead,\u2019 experts and politicians in Berlin told me. I am glad that German political decisions have changed since then,\u201d Kuleba said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Odesa Russia and Ukraine launched more than a dozen drones at each other\u2019s territory for a second day on Sunday, one of which apparently targeted a Russian military airport, while a Ukrainian civilian was killed after drone debris slammed into his house near the Black Sea. At least 35 Ukrainian drones were shot down overnight […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":375140,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":{"0":"post-375129","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-world"},"yoast_head":"\n