KYIV, Ukraine (AP) – U.S. arms shipments to Ukraine have not stopped, however Iran wasand Ukrainians long range shots They continue to control Russian production and oil production plants, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Thursday.
“Of course, we are hitting what is painful for Russia and it is very painful,” Zelenskyy said in voice messages to reporters. He said that Russian losses from the attacks have reached tens of billions of dollars.
It was not possible to independently verify Zelenskyy’s comments, but Russian officials have reported that the attacks hit infrastructure in regions more than 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) inside Russia.
While Russia pushes it comprehensive occupationwhich started on February 24, 2022, Ukraine is using its domestic development drone and missile technology to hit Russian territory. The Ukrainian military also uses American-made Patriot air defense systems to stop Russian missile attacks on Ukrainian territory.
“We see that the Russians do not want to stop – they are hitting our energy sector and our people. We will respond,” Zelenskyy said.
Prince Harry praises Ukraine’s resistance
Ukraine’s fight against Russia’s largest army received fresh praise from Prince Harrywho arrived in Kiev on Thursday for his third visit in a year.
Ukrainians have demonstrated “strength not only in bravery and skill, but in unity, in faith,” he said in a speech at a security conference in Kiev.
Ukraine “continues to stay together, and you have to stay together,” he said.
The Duke of Sussex stepped off a train at Kiev’s main station after an overnight journey from Poland, which is the only way to travel to the Ukrainian capital.
It was not clear whether Harry would meet with Zelenskyy, who would attend one summit of European Union leaders in Cyprus on Thursday evening.
Russian firefighters fight huge fire of drone attack
Hours before Harry’s arrival, three people were killed and 10 wounded in a Russian drone strike in the central Ukrainian city of Dnipro, according to Oleksandr Hanzha, head of the regional military administration.
A 13-story building and an administrative building were damaged in the strike, Hanzha said on the Telegram messaging app.
Meanwhile, Russian air defense intercepted 154 Ukrainian drones over Russian regions, the annexed Crimean peninsula, the Sea of Azov and the Black Sea, the Russian Defense Ministry said.
Authorities in the Krasnodar region on Russia’s Black Sea coast said 276 firefighters in the Black Sea port of Tuapse were battling a large fire sparked by a Ukrainian drone strike earlier this week for the third straight day.
Toxic material from the fire rained down, covering several districts of Tuapse with a black layer of dirt, the region’s emergency headquarters reported. The concentration of chemicals in the air from the fire exceeded permissible levels, officials said, and authorities advised residents to stay indoors.
Ukraine targets more Russian oil facilities
For the second night in a row, Russia’s Samara region was also targeted. In the Samara city of Novokuybyshevsk, about 1,000 kilometers (600 miles) east of the Ukrainian border, a drone strike on an unspecified industrial facility killed one person, regional governor Vyacheslav Fedorishchev said.
Debris from the drone also fell on a roof of a residential building in the city of Samara, injuring a number of people, Fedorishchev said. One person was hospitalized.
Unconfirmed media reports said a petrochemical plant in Novokuybyshevsk owned by oil and gas company Rosneft was attacked.
Ukrainian forces also hit Russian oil infrastructure in the Samara region and a pipeline in the Nizhegorodskaya region that transports oil from Western Siberia to Tatarstan, said Andriy Kovalenko, head of Ukraine’s Center for Countering Disinformation.
An oil refinery in the Samara region and an oil pipeline in the Nizhegorodskaya region were hit, he said. The pipeline transports oil from Western Siberia to Tatarstan. He did not provide further details about the strikes.
Also, units of the Security Service of Ukraine hit the Gorky oil pumping station in Russia’s Nizhny Novgorod region east of Moscow, a senior official from the agency, which goes by the acronym SBU, said.
The overnight drone strike damaged three oil tanks and caused a large fire, the official said. The official was not authorized to comment publicly and spoke on condition of anonymity.
“The operation of the main pipelines is interrupted, the efficiency of processing in refineries decreases and the costs of transportation increase. As a result, this directly affects the revenues of the Russian budget, which are used to finance the war against Ukraine,” the official said.
By HANNA ARHIROVA and sgames KULLAB Associated Press
Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine
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