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Damage to office building after alleged drone attack in Moscow

Photo: Vyacheslav Prokofyev / ITAR-TASS / IMAGO

What happened in the past few hours

According to Russian sources, Moscow was attacked by two drones on Monday night. No one was injured, there was no major damage, said Moscow's mayor Sergei Sobyanin, according to the state news agency Tass. The Russian Defense Ministry said Ukraine's attempt to carry out a terrorist attack in Moscow with two drones had been thwarted.

A drone had been discovered in the center of the capital, another had hit a high-rise office building in the south of the city, said an employee of the emergency services. An explosion was heard. Sobyanin spoke of two buildings that had been hit.

Already at the beginning of July, drones had been shot down over the territory of Moscow, according to the Russian Ministry of Defense. The Ministry of Defense also blamed Ukraine for the drone attacks at the time.

There were also drone attacks on the Russian capital in May. According to the authorities, houses were damaged and people were injured in an attack at the end of May. As a consequence, Russian President Vladimir Putin had called for an improvement in his own air defense. For weeks now, attacks have also been increasing in Russia – mostly in the immediate border region with Ukraine.

According to the General Staff, the Ukrainian army has encountered heavy Russian resistance in the east of the country during its counteroffensive. The General Staff's nightly situation report on Sunday spoke of ongoing Russian attacks between Donetsk in the east and Kupyansk in the northeastern Kharkiv region. Along a front length of around 230 kilometers, 24 battles took place during the past 27 hours.

In the process, artillery and air force were increasingly used by the Russian side, it said. More than 60 villages in the sector of the front are said to have come under Russian rocket and artillery fire. Initially, the information could not be independently verified.

This is what Kiev says

Following the Russian attacks on the port city of Odessa over the weekend, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy has addressed words of gratitude to his own people and international allies. "I thank everyone who is with Odessa," Zelenskyy said in his nightly video address on Sunday evening, praising the achievements of the volunteer rescuers, doctors and local authorities of the city in the south of the country. "It's very important to help each other and our city!" he added.

According to Ukrainian sources, at least one person was killed and 22 others were injured in the Russian attacks on Sunday night. The Old Town, classified as a World Heritage Site, and the Orthodox Transfiguration Cathedral were also hit.

The attack sparked numerous international reactions. The EU condemned the attacks on the port city, through which grain was exported until recently, as war crimes. Pope Francis included Odessa in a prayer for peace on Sunday. Representatives of the United States, Great Britain, Italy and France also expressed their condolences. "It is heartbreaking to follow the scenes of destruction in Odessa," tweeted Moldovan President Maia Sandu.

On Sunday evening, Zelensky also found words of praise for NATO Secretary General Jens Stoltenberg and the quick response of the new NATO-Ukraine Council. Stoltenberg, at the request of Ukraine, called a meeting of the new council for Wednesday. This new structure for cooperation between NATO and Ukraine was established at the recent NATO summit in Vilnius.

This is what Moscow says about the grain dispute

A few days after Moscow stopped the grain deal, Russian President Vladimir Putin has said that Russia is ready to replace Ukrainian grain supplies. "I want to assure you that our country is able to replace Ukrainian grain on both a commercial and gratuitous basis, especially since we expect another record harvest this year," Putin wrote in an article for African media on the occasion of an upcoming Russia-Africa summit in St. Petersburg, Russia, starting Thursday. The article was published on the Kremlin's website.

Despite the sanctions imposed by the West, Russia will continue to work "vigorously" on the supply of grain, food and fertilizers to African countries, it added. In 2022, Russia exported 11.5 million tons of grain to Africa, and almost ten million tons in the first six months of this year. "And this is despite the sanctions imposed on our exports, which actually make it significantly more difficult to export Russian food to developing countries," Putin continued.

Commenting on the grain deal stopped by Moscow, which allowed Ukrainian grain to be exported via the Black Sea for about a year, Putin wrote that the export corridor had lost its humanitarian significance. Of the total of almost 33 million tonnes of grain exported under the agreement, the majority went to high- and upper-middle-income countries. In reality, the grain deal was "shamelessly used exclusively for the enrichment of large American and European companies that exported and resold grain from Ukraine," Putin claimed.

Russia had let the international grain agreement expire a week ago despite many international appeals. The United Nations has repeatedly called for the agreement to be reinstated, and China has also called on both sides to resume exports quickly. It is feared that famines in poorer countries will otherwise become even greater.

Survey on relations with Russia

When it comes to the right way to deal with Russia, Germans in East and West have very different opinions. In a representative survey conducted by the opinion research institute YouGov on behalf of the dpa news agency, 37 percent of respondents agreed with the statement that "Russia is a country with which the federal government would be better off." One in two participants in the survey expressed their disapproval. However, approval was much higher among people in the eastern federal states than among eligible voters in the territory of the old Federal Republic.

However, the fact that more people in the east are pleading for this cautious way of dealing with Russia is not necessarily to be understood by all of them as approval of the course of Russian President Putin, who launched a war of aggression against Ukraine in February 2022. A look at the results of the survey shows that concerns probably also play a role here. According to the survey, there are also more people in the territory of the former GDR who perceive Russia as a threat to Germany than people who do not see it that way.

Nationwide, 63 percent of eligible voters see Russia as a threat to Germany. 30 percent of Germans tend to agree or disagree with this statement. Only eight percent were undecided or did not provide any information.

jok/dpa/Reuters