Ukraine ‘shoots down three Russian bombers’ as Putin’s war supplies ‘slowing’

Three Russian bomber aircraft have been shot down over southern Ukraine, Kyiv’s air force claims.

“Today, in the Southern direction – minus three Russian Su-34 fighter bombers!,” said Ukraine’s Air Force.

Su-34 aircraft, which are armed with guided bombs and Kh-59 missiles, can carry out long-distance attacks.

Mykola Oleschuk, chief of Ukraine’s air force, said it had downed the three SU-34s “in a southern direction”, which he did not specify.

There were reports of a Russian military helicopter being scrambled to try to rescue the pilot of at least one of the planes.

Russian Telegram accounts suggested the aircraft were shot down near Ukraine’s Kherson bridgehead over the river Dnipro.

Ukraine and Poland have said they are ready to try to resolve “problematic” issues in their relations, which have been damaged by a Polish truckers’ blockade of border crossings.

The pledge emerged from a meeting in Kyiv between Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba and Polish counterpart Radoslaw Sikorski, who was on his first official trip abroad.

Ukraine has counted Poland as one of its closest European Union allies. Poland, now led by a centrist, pro-EU cabinet under Donald Tusk, has given Ukraine humanitarian and military assistance and taken in millions of Ukrainian refugees.

But relations have been overshadowed by a protest blockade of several border crossings by Polish truck drivers, and what Kyiv has seen as a lack of initiative by the previous Polish nationalist government to resolve the problem.

Hauliers are angry over a loss of business to competition from Ukrainian truckers who have benefited from permit-free access to EU territory since the war began.

They want permits for Ukrainian truckers reinstated, something Kyiv and the European Commission say is not negotiable. The protests have resulted in economic losses for Ukraine and also affected vital volunteer military aid supplies.

Poland’s deputy infrastructure minister said after talks with his Ukrainian counterpart that he hoped the protests could be solved before the end of the year.

A Russian deputy foreign minister said that talks with the United States on a potential prisoner exchange that would free Americans held in Russia are hampered by publicity and an alleged disparity in the U.S. negotiating stance.

The U.S. State Department said last week that Russia rejected several proposals for freeing Paul Whelan, an American convicted of espionage, and Wall Street Journal reporter Evan Gershkovich, who was detained in March and is facing espionage charges.

“Here, as in many other areas, we observe the American traditional desire to get more for ourselves and give the minimum, as they say,” Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov said in an interview with the Interfax news agency that was published Friday.

The Dutch government announced Friday it is preparing to give 18 F-16 fighter jets to Ukraine, in a boost for the embattled nation that is growing increasingly anxious about aid from its Western allies.

The Dutch defense minister, Kajsa Ollongren, sent a letter to parliament outlining the plan to donate the sophisticated jets that was first unveiled in the summer.

Friday’s decision is a significant step toward sending the planes into the skies over Ukraine, but did not say when they will be delivered.

The government said the move “allows personnel and budget to be allocated to prepare the devices” to be sent to Ukraine.

“With F-16s, Ukraine can better defend itself against Russian attacks,” Ollongren said in a statement.

She added that the planes are “extremely important because the ongoing Russian aggression shows no sign of ending. That is why we are continuing unabated with our support for Ukraine.”

U.S. President Joe Biden’s new executive order strengthening U.S. sanctions against Russia will put new pressure on banks to ensure that their services are not being used to aid Russia‘s efforts to circumvent sanctions, U.S. Deputy Treasury Secretary Wally Adeyemo said on Friday.

Adeyemo said in an interview on CNBC that most major financial institutions are adhering to U.S. sanctions aimed at preventing Russia from acquiring materials needed for its war effort. But the new executive order due to be signed on Friday allows the Treasury to target banks in countries like China, Turkey, the United Arab Emirates and other countries that may be willingly or unwittingly helping Russia evade sanctions, Adeyemo said.

“What this tool says is that if you’re a financial institution, you need to take steps to make sure that you are not being used” by Russian front companies to evade sanctions.

Ukraine shot down 24 of 28 Shahed drones launched by Russia in an overnight attack that damaged residential buildings in Kyiv and an infrastructure facility and grain warehouse in southern regions, officials said.

They said more than two dozen Russian drones targeted Ukraine‘s capital, hitting the 24th, 25th and 26th storeys of an apartment building and injuring two people, and causing lesser damage to several other residential buildings.

In the south, Russia again tried to hit port infrastructure – a frequent target since it pulled out of a U.N.-brokered deal reached after Russia‘s February 2022 invasion that allowed safe passage of Ukrainian grain shipments via the Black Sea.

“…Wreckage of the downed (drone) damaged a granary. There was a fire that was quickly tamed by the company’s employees,” the southern military command said on the Telegram messaging platform, describing the aftermath in the Odesa region.

Russia said its air defences intercepted five Ukrainian drones south of Moscow in the space of less than an hour on Friday.

The defence ministry said four were intercepted over Kaluga region and a fifth was destroyed inside the Moscow region.

Moscow mayor Sergei Sobyanin, apparently referring to the latter incident, said fragments of the drone had fallen in the city of Podolsk but no casualties or damage had been reported.

Drone attacks aimed at Moscow have subsided since the summer, when they repeatedly hit a business district of the capital and forced frequent airport closures. In May, two drones exploded on the roof of a building in the Kremlin, without causing any serious damage.

Ukraine said on Thursday that Russia had launched about 7,400 missiles and 3,700 Iranian-made Shahed drones at targets in Ukraine in the course of the 22-month war.

The year started with high hopes for Ukrainian troops planning a counteroffensive against Russia. It ended with disappointment on the battlefield, an increasingly somber mood among troops and anxiety about the future of Western aid for Ukraine‘s war effort.

In between, there was a short-lived rebellion in Russia, a dam collapse in Ukraine, and the spilling of much blood on both sides of the conflict.

Twenty-two months since it invaded, Russia has about one-fifth of Ukraine in its grip, and the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line has barely budged this year.

A crunch has come away from the battlefield. In Western countries that have championed Ukraine’s struggle against its much bigger adversary, political deliberations over billions in financial aid are increasingly strained.

Former TV journalist, Yekaterina Duntsova, 40, has submitted her documents to the Central Election Commission in Moscow to begin the formal process of entering the running.