Russian attacks yesterday killed one person in Ukraine’s Kherson region as the toll from a drone strike in the city of Odesa climbed to 10, authorities said.
The latest deaths came a day after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy pleaded with Western allies to supply more air-defense systems.
The Ukrainian Ministry of Internal Affairs reported one death and three people wounded in the southern Kherson region yesterday following Russian strikes.
Photo: Reuters
In the southern port city of Odesa on the Black Sea, two more bodies — a woman and her eight-month-old baby — were found following a Russian drone strike overnight between Friday and Saturday.
A seven-month-old baby and a two-year-old child were among the previously reported eight victims.
“Russia continues to hit civilians,” Zelenskiy wrote on social media.
“We need more air defenses from our partners. We need to strengthen the Ukrainian air shield to add more protection for our people from Russian terror. More air-defense systems and more missiles for air-defense systems save lives.”
Ukraine is on the back foot in the two-year war as a crucial US$60 billion aid package is held up in the US Congress.
In Odesa, “a nine-story building was destroyed as a result of an attack by Russian terrorists,” Ukrainian Minister of Internal Affairs Igor Klymenko wrote on Telegram on Saturday.
About 8 people were still unaccounted for.
Footage from the scene showed several floors of a residential building collapsed and its facade ripped off.
Kyiv appeared to have launched its own overnight drone attack, with the Russian Ministry of Defense early yesterday saying it had shot down 38 drones over the occupied territory of Crimea.
An apparent Ukrainian drone also damaged a residential building a day earlier in St Petersburg.
Videos on Russian social media showed what appeared to be a drone spiraling downward into the building, triggering an explosion that blew out windows and caused small fires.
Ukrainian media reported that the drone was shot down by Russia’s air defenses while targeting an oil depot about 1km from the crash site.
Russia also expressed outrage at a leak of confidential German army talks in which officers allegedly discussed missile strikes on the Crimean Peninsula.
German Chancellor Olaf Scholz on Saturday promised a full investigation after the head of Russia’s state-run RT news outlet posted the alleged leaked recording on social media.
A spokeswoman for the German Ministry of Defense on Saturday said that a secret air force conversation had been tapped, but that they could not say for certain whether any changes had been made to the conversation in the leaked audio file.
Tropical Storm Usagi strengthened to a typhoon yesterday morning and remains on track to brush past southeastern Taiwan from tomorrow to Sunday, the Central Weather Administration (CWA) said yesterday. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was approximately 950km east-southeast of Oluanpi (鵝鑾鼻), Taiwan proper’s southernmost point, the CWA said. It is expected to enter the Bashi Channel and then turn north, moving into waters southeast of Taiwan, it said. The agency said it could issue a sea warning in the early hours of today and a land warning in the afternoon. As of 2pm yesterday, the storm was moving at
DISCONTENT: The CCP finds positive content about the lives of the Chinese living in Taiwan threatening, as such video could upset people in China, an expert said Chinese spouses of Taiwanese who make videos about their lives in Taiwan have been facing online threats from people in China, a source said yesterday. Some young Chinese spouses of Taiwanese make videos about their lives in Taiwan, often speaking favorably about their living conditions in the nation compared with those in China, the source said. However, the videos have caught the attention of Chinese officials, causing the spouses to come under attack by Beijing’s cyberarmy, they said. “People have been messing with the YouTube channels of these Chinese spouses and have been harassing their family members back in China,”
The Central Weather Administration (CWA) yesterday said there are four weather systems in the western Pacific, with one likely to strengthen into a tropical storm and pose a threat to Taiwan. The nascent tropical storm would be named Usagi and would be the fourth storm in the western Pacific at the moment, along with Typhoon Yinxing and tropical storms Toraji and Manyi, the CWA said. It would be the first time that four tropical cyclones exist simultaneously in November, it added. Records from the meteorology agency showed that three tropical cyclones existed concurrently in January in 1968, 1991 and 1992.
GEOPOLITICAL CONCERNS: Foreign companies such as Nissan, Volkswagen and Konica Minolta have pulled back their operations in China this year Foreign companies pulled more money from China last quarter, a sign that some investors are still pessimistic even as Beijing rolls out stimulus measures aimed at stabilizing growth. China’s direct investment liabilities in its balance of payments dropped US$8.1 billion in the third quarter, data released by the Chinese State Administration of Foreign Exchange showed on Friday. The gauge, which measures foreign direct investment (FDI) in China, was down almost US$13 billion for the first nine months of the year. Foreign investment into China has slumped in the past three years after hitting a record in 2021, a casualty of geopolitical tensions,
RSS