Germany has received a warning from Russian President Vladimir Putin after joining the United States last week and authorizing Ukraine to hit targets on Russian soil along Ukraine’s Kharkiv region border using long-range weapons supplied by Germany.
German tanks arriving as deliveries in Ukraine surprised many in Russia, according to Putin, who said, “When German tanks first appeared on Ukrainian soil, it already produced such a moral ethical shock in Russia, because relations toward [Germany] in Russian society had always been very good.”
“Now, if they use missiles to strike facilities on the Russian territory it will completely ruin Russian-German relations,” Putin said.
Ukraine’s military said Wednesday that Russian forces attacked overnight with 22 aerial drones, with officials in Ukraine’s Mykolaiv region reporting damage to homes.
The Ukrainian air force said the country’s air defenses shot down all 22 of the drones, with intercepts taking place over the Mykolaiv, Dnipropetrovsk, Kherson, Poltava and Sumy regions.
Vitaliy Kim, the regional governor of Mykolaiv, said on Telegram falling debris destroyed one home and damaged 10 others. There were no reported injuries.
Filip Pronin, the governor of Poltava, reported on Telegram the Russian attack injured one person and damaged an industrial facility.
In Dnipropetrovsk, Governor Serhiy Lysak said on Telegram the drone attack damaged five homes, three farm buildings and some power lines.
Russia’s defense ministry said Wednesday it destroyed two Ukrainian drones over the Belgorod region, two drones over the Kursk region and another drone over the Voronezh region. There were no reports of casualties.
The Russian leader also stated he is not concerned about the results of the upcoming election in the United States.
“To say — I am speaking quite sincerely — that we believe that after the elections something will change toward Russia in American policy, I would not say so. We don't think so. We think that nothing really serious will happen,” Putin said.
Zelenskyy talks
U.S. President Joe Biden and Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy are due to meet this week while both leaders are in France, White House national security adviser Jake Sullivan told reporters.
Those talks will be followed by another meeting next week as leaders from the Group of Seven leading industrial nations gather for a summit in Italy.
Sullivan said Biden “will have two substantive engagements with President Zelenskyy,” including talks about the current situation in Ukraine and how the United States can “continue and deepen” its support.
The second meeting will come just ahead of the Ukraine peace conference hosted by Switzerland, which Biden is not attending. The U.S. delegation will include Vice President Kamala Harris and Sullivan.
Sullivan said Ukraine needs more air defenses, and that the United States is working to supply them along with a “continued flow of weaponry.”
U.S. support at this time does not include plans to send U.S. military trainers to Ukraine, Sullivan said.
Russia on Tuesday did not rule out strikes on foreign military instructors in Ukraine. Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov said foreign trainers “do not have immunity.”
White House national security spokesman John Kirby told reporters Tuesday that he expects the G7 talks to include discussion of using frozen Russian assets to pay for reconstruction efforts in Ukraine.
Kirby said those assets are held all over the world, and it would take a coordinated effort from allies to make the plan work.
“Where that's going to go and whether we're going to have some sort of decision soon, I can't speak to that,” Kirby said. “But it is an idea that we believe has merit and should be explored. But in order for it to happen and to be effective, we got to have the participation of friends and partners on that.”
Peskov said late last month that a European Union plan to use profits from frozen Russian assets to help fund Ukraine’s defense would be “nothing less than expropriation.”
Some information for this report was provided by The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.
