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> In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said on Tuesday, "We are not enabling Ukraine to strike beyond its borders. We are not encouraging Ukraine to strike beyond its borders."
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✓ The New York Times, citing a senior Ukrainian official, said the drones involved in Monday's attacks were launched from Ukrainian territory, and at least one of the strikes was carried out with the help of special forces close to the base.
✓ Ukraine never publicly acknowledges responsibility for attacks inside Russia. Asked about the strikes, Defence Minister Oleskiy Reznikov repeated a longstanding joke blaming carelessness with cigarettes. "Very often Russians smoke in places where it's forbidden to smoke," he said.
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Moscow accuses U.S. of direct involvement in attacks on Russian territory
12/16/2022 10:04:00 PM
"Ukraine launched drone strikes inside Russia this month, including one that struck an oil tanker on an airfield in Kursk.
Ukraine launched drone strikes inside Russia this month, including one that struck an oil tanker on an airfield in Kursk.
Moscow has reportedly accused the United States and Poland of being involved in preparing attacks on Russian territory after Ukraine launched drone strikes inside Russia this month.An unnamed source at a Russian security agency told TASS on Friday that data from intercepted drones show the involvement of both countries in plans to launch attacks.
"Relevant agencies of the Russian Federation analyzed electronic components of the intercepted unmanned aerial vehicles [UAVs], used by Ukraine for attacks on Russian infrastructure objects—in particular, in Sevastopol, in Crimea, in Kursk, Belgorod and Voronezh regions," the source told TASS, a Russian state-owned news agency."
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Posted: Dec 7, 2022
Newsweek »
Posted: 19 hours ago
Probe points to origin of drones used to attack Russia – media
"The UAVs deployed by Kiev were produced by US maker Spektreworks and assembled in Poland, RIA Novosti reports
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"Drones used by Ukraine to attack targets in Russia were produced by an American company based near Phoenix, Arizona, investigators have reportedly found, claiming that Poland was also involved in their deployment.
The findings are contained in a document seen by RIA Novosti, according to an article published by the Russian news agency on Friday. It did not state which agency had produced the document, but said the unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) had been identified by their electronic components and other parts.
The evidence was reportedly collected during several Ukrainian operations targeting Russian infrastructure in the city of Sevastopol and the regions of Kursk, Belgorod and Voronezh, according to RIA Novosti.
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The original maker of the drones was identified as Spektreworks, a company based in Scottsdale, Arizona in the Phoenix metropolitan area. It offers several ready solutions, including large fixed-wing drones with payload allowance of 10lbs (4.5kg), as well as UAV engineering services.
The firm produced avionics and control stations for drones used by Kiev and “conducted their preliminary setting at the Scottsdale Airport,” the report stated.
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The final assembly and in-flight testing of the UAVs took place at the Rzeszow Airport in southeastern Poland, which the US and its allies use as a hub for supplying weapons to Ukraine, the investigators claimed. The aircraft were armed and launched from locations near the Ukrainian cities of Odessa and Krivoy Rog, they added.
According to the report, the data “confirms that the US and Poland are directly involved in organizing terrorist acts on the territory of the Russian Federation” and are de facto parties to the armed conflict between Ukraine and Russia.
Kiev
had several Soviet-made drones, as well as Turkish-produced Bayraktar
TB2 armed UAVs, in its arsenal before the start of the hostilities with
Russia in late February. Western nations have pledged to arm Kiev for “as long as it takes” to defeat Moscow on the battlefield." READ MORE
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Ukraine appears to expose Russian air defence gaps with long-range strikes
- Summary
- Companies
- Three killed at Russian base just hours from Moscow
- One of bases hit was home to Russian bomber fleet
- Ukraine minister jokes: Careless Russian smokers to blame
"KYIV/NOVOSOFIIVKA, Ukraine, Dec 6 (Reuters) - A third Russian airfield was set ablaze on Tuesday by a drone strike, a day after Ukraine demonstrated an apparent new ability to penetrate hundreds of kilometres into Russian air space with attacks on two bases.
Officials in the Russian city of Kursk, around 90 km (60 miles) north of the Ukraine border, released pictures of black smoke above an airfield in Tuesday's early hours after the latest strike. The governor said an oil storage tank had gone up in flames, but there were no casualties.
On Monday, Russia said it had been hit hundreds of kilometres from Ukraine by what it said were Soviet-era drones - at Engels air base, home to Russia's strategic bomber fleet, and in Ryazan, a few hours' drive from Moscow.
In Washington, U.S. State Department spokesman Ned Price said on Tuesday, "We are not enabling Ukraine to strike beyond its borders. We are not encouraging Ukraine to strike beyond its borders."
He added that there was no confirmation the strikes were carried out by Ukraine.
Price said the United States has not provided Ukraine with weapons that are to be used within Russia.
"We have been very clear that these are defensive supplies," Price said.
'SMOKING'
Russia's defence ministry said three service members were killed in the attack at Ryazan. Although the attacks struck military targets, it characterised them as terrorism and said the aim was to disable its long-range aircraft.
The New York Times, citing a senior Ukrainian official, said the drones involved in Monday's attacks were launched from Ukrainian territory, and at least one of the strikes was carried out with the help of special forces close to the base.
Ukraine never publicly acknowledges responsibility for attacks inside Russia. Asked about the strikes, Defence Minister Oleskiy Reznikov repeated a longstanding joke blaming carelessness with cigarettes. "Very often Russians smoke in places where it's forbidden to smoke," he said.
Ukrainian presidential adviser Oleksiy Arestovych went further, noting that Engels is Russia's only base fully equipped for the fleet of huge bombers Moscow has used to attack Ukraine.
"They will try to disperse (strategic aircraft) to airfields, but all this complicates the operation against Ukraine. Yesterday, thanks to their 'unsuccessful smoking', we achieved a very big result," he said.
The damage to the warplanes also caused grumbling among Russian military bloggers, whose social media posts can provide a window into the mood in Russia on the course of the war, which began more than nine months ago with Russian forces invading Ukraine.
[1/2] A satellite image shows bomber in flight at northeast of Engels Air Base in Saratov, Russia, December 3, 2022. Satellite image 2022 Maxar Technologies/Handout via REUTERS
"And I, a naive civilian fool, thought that planes were kept under concrete shelters during war, no?" wrote Vladlen Tatarsky. "It turns out that small drones, the danger from which was so neglected, can attack strategic aircraft."
NEW BARRAGE
The huge Tupolev long-range bombers that Russia stations at Engels form a big part of its strategic nuclear arsenal, similar to the B-52s deployed by the United States during the Cold War. Russia has used them in its campaign since October to destroy Ukraine's energy grid with near weekly waves of missile strikes.
The Engels base, near the city of Saratov, is at least 600 km (372 miles) from the nearest Ukrainian territory.
Russia responded to Monday's attacks with what it called a "massive strike on Ukraine's military control system", though it did not identify any specific military targets for what Ukraine called Moscow's latest strikes on civilian infrastructure.
Moscow claims military justification for attacks on Ukraine's civil infrastructure. Kyiv says the strikes are intended to hurt civilians, a war crime.
Missiles across Ukraine destroyed homes and knocked out power, but the impact seemed less severe than barrages last month that pitched millions of Ukrainians into darkness and cold.
Meanwhile on the battlefields of eastern, northeastern and southern Ukraine, Russian forces kept up their shelling of towns and villages, the Ukrainian military said in its Tuesday evening report.
On Tuesday, Zelenskiy visited troops in the eastern Donbas region that has seen the war's heaviest fighting.
He praised soldiers in a selfie video filmed in front of a sign on the road outside Sloviansk, near the city of Bakhmut that Russian forces have been trying to encircle for weeks. He also presented medals and shook hands with troops in a hangar.
RESISTANCE
Also on Tuesday, the U.S. deputy secretary of state said Russia must remove all its troops from Ukraine.
Wendy Sherman, speaking at an event in Rome, said the United States had sufficient arms stockpiles to keep helping Ukraine, and that Western states backing Kyiv must "stay the course".
No political talks are under way to end the war. Moscow insists it will not negotiate unless Kyiv and the West accept its sovereignty over Ukrainian lands it claims, while Kyiv says Russia must leave all its territory.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said on Tuesday talks would only be possible when Russia achieves the goals of its "special military operation", which he did not define."
Reporting by Reuters bureaux; Writing by Peter Graff, Angus MacSwan and Grant McCool; Editing by Gareth Jones, Mark Heinrich and Cynthia Osterman
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