Moscow stepped up attacks across Ukraine on Monday, killing four people and cutting power in a series of kamikaze drone attacks in the capital. Ukrainian Prime Minister Denys Shmygal said Russia launched five strikes in Kyiv, as well as attacks on energy facilities in Sumy and the central Dnipropetrovsk regions, which cut power to hundreds of cities and towns .
Elsewhere, at least three people were killed when a Russian warplane crashed near the border with Ukraine. The plane hit a residential area in Yeysk, a city in southwestern Russia, news agencies reported, citing the defense ministry. Both pilots managed to eject before the crash, but many residents were taken to hospital with injuries, local authorities said. Health Minister Mikhail Murashko said three people had died and 19 were injured, state news agency TASS reported. The emergency ministry had earlier given six deaths. The reason for the discrepancy was not immediately clear.
Ukraine announced that more than 100 prisoners have been swapped with Russia in what it said was the first exchange of women with Moscow after nearly eight months of war. “The more Russian prisoners we have, the sooner we can free our heroes. All Ukrainian soldiers, all front-line commanders should remember this,” Zelensky said.
To the south, Ukrainian troops have been moving closer and closer to the large city of Kherson in northern Crimea. Kherson is one of four regions of Ukraine that Moscow recently claimed to have annexed.
Ukraine’s foreign minister called on the European Union to sanction Iran for supplying Russia with kamikaze drones that killed at least four civilians in Kyiv on Monday.
Iran again said on Monday that it had not provided Russia with drones for use in Ukraine. “The published news about Iran providing Russia with drones has political ambitions and is distributed by Western sources. We have not provided weapons to any side of the warring countries,” said the Iranian Foreign Ministry spokesman , Nasser Kanaani. EU foreign policy chief Josep Borrell said the bloc would seek “concrete evidence” of Iran’s involvement in Russia’s war against Ukraine.
The European Union has agreed to create a mission to train 15,000 Ukrainian soldiers. It will also contribute another 500 million euros to help buy weapons. A meeting of EU foreign ministers on Monday approved the two-year training mission, which will involve different EU forces providing basic and specialist training to Ukrainian soldiers, in Poland and Germany. Officials expect the mission, expected to cost 107 million euros, to be up and running by mid-November.
Israeli officials declined to comment on comments by former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev that Tel Aviv is preparing to provide military aid to Ukraine. In a Telegram message on Monday, Medvedev, currently vice president of Russia’s Security Council, warned Israel not to arm Kyiv, calling it “a reckless move” that would “destroy relations between our countries.” Israel has tried to maintain a neutral stance as it relies on Russia to facilitate its operations against Iran-linked actors in Syria.
Marina Ovsyannikova, the former Russian state television journalist who staged an on-air protest against the war in March, has fled the country, according to her lawyer.