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Zelenskyy,EU Leaders to Discuss Support07/13 06:25
(AP) -- Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy was due in Paris on Monday
for talks with two dozen European leaders helping Kyiv fight Russia's invasion,
with the war now in its fifth year.
European foreign ministers were also meeting separately in Brussels where
they were expected to discuss Ukraine's needs and Russia's threats to the
continent.
Both Kyiv and its European backers are keen to press home Ukraine's recent
successes and compel Russian President Vladimir Putin to negotiate an end to
the fighting, although Moscow has shown no willingness to compromise despite a
yearlong peace effort by the Trump administration.
Ukraine's advances in drone technology have in recent months given it an
edge, analysts and Western officials say. Its strikes on supply routes behind
the front line have robbed the Russian army of momentum on the battlefield and
made its progress slow and costly, they say.
Kyiv's forces have especially targeted supplies to Crimea, triggering the
worst fuel crisis on the Black Sea peninsula since it was illegally annexed by
Russia in 2014, and delivering a blow to the Kremlin's narrative that Moscow is
winning the war.
Zelenskyy is keen to move quickly on plans for jointly developing with
European countries anti-ballistic air defenses that can help stop Russia's
devastating attacks on Ukraine's power grid.
"Everyone in the world sees that Ukraine needs more air defense, more
protection of life," Zelenskyy said Monday on social media after the latest
overnight attacks across Ukraine.
U.S. President Donald Trump's pledge last week to give Ukraine a license to
produce Patriot air-defense systems could mark a major breakthrough for Kyiv.
However, experts and Ukrainian officials warn that turning the idea into real
weapons would likely take years.
European leaders demonstrate commitment to Ukraine
The meeting in Paris of the so-called Coalition of the Willing, which brings
together more than 30 countries supporting Ukraine, was expected to include
around 25 heads of state and government.
The notably high number of leaders appeared to be a demonstration of
long-term commitment to Ukraine and a warning to Russia, as Moscow tests
Europe's resilience.
French Foreign Minister Jean-Nol Barrot announced Monday that he would
summon the Russian ambassador to France and impose sanctions against Russian
hackers. He told BFMTV-RMC that the issue is about "a vast cyber campaign aimed
at sabotage and espionage, carried out by Russia in about 10 European
countries."
Ukraine's neighbors have also felt the war's impact.
In the latest incident, a drone launched during Russian overnight attacks on
Ukraine's Odesa region crashed and exploded on Moldova's territory, Moldova's
Ministry of Foreign Affairs said Monday. It said the incident was "serious and
unacceptable."
Zelenskyy was traveling to the French capital after the death of U.S. Sen.
Lindsey Graham, one of Kyiv's staunchest supporters in Washington, and amid a
major and incomplete reshuffle of his government that saw Prime Minister Yulia
Svyrydenko step down on Sunday.
Ukraine fires more than 300 drones toward Moscow
Ukraine has aimed at targets deep inside Russia with its domestically
developed long-range drones and missiles, matching and sometimes exceeding the
number of drones used in relentless Russian aerial attacks.
Russian air defenses downed 350 Ukrainian drones heading toward Moscow since
late Sunday, including 50 near the capital, Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said.
Andrei Vorobyov, the head of the region around Moscow, said that 81
Ukrainian drones were downed overnight.
Vorobyov said that three people were killed and another three were injured
by the Ukrainian attack in the Pionersky settlement just outside Istra in the
western part of the Moscow region. Five private houses were set ablaze, he said.
The Ukrainian air force, meanwhile, said Russia launched 134 long-range
strike drones and three guided aviation missiles at Ukraine. Air defenses shot
down or jammed all the missiles and 123 drones, while six drones caused damage
at five locations, it said.
In the southern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, over 70 people were
hospitalized after a series of recent Russian strikes damaged 11 apartment
blocks, according to military administration head Ivan Fedorov.
Russia says it thwarted a major Ukraine drone operation
Russia's Federal Security Service, the country's main domestic security
agency, said it had thwarted a Ukrainian plan for a drone attack on the
Ukrainka air base in the far eastern Amur region, and the Shagol air base in
the Chelyabinsk region in the southern Urals.
The agency said small drones were smuggled into Russia's western Bryansk
region using air balloons and bigger transport drones, and then taken by car
close to the air bases by Ukrainian agents.
The agency said it had arrested Ukrainian agents and their accomplices and
seized 24 drones. It said the purported plot was part of a series of planned
drone strikes on military infrastructure "unprecedented in its scale and the
level of threat."
A Ukrainian covert operation just over a year ago, code named Operation
Spiderweb, destroyed or damaged nearly a third of Moscow's strategic bomber
fleet with drones sneaked into Russian territory, according to Ukrainian
officials.
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