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Kyiv/Moscow: EU countries have begun discussions on how to deal with Russia’s possible use of Iranian drones in the Ukraine war, as the bloc sanctioned Iran’s ethics police and other entities over human rights abuses linked to the death of a young woman in police custody.
Russia has attacked Kyiv for the second time since last Monday, hitting the city center with Iranian-made drones that are essentially winged missiles that can loiter until they lock onto their target. Four people were killed and residential buildings damaged, local authorities said.
Ukrainian Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba said he was addressing a meeting of EU foreign ministers by videoconference on Monday from an air-raid shelter in Kyiv, asking the EU to impose new sanctions on Iran for supplying drones to Russia .
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said the bloc was currently gathering evidence from intelligence agencies and elsewhere to determine whether Russia was using Iranian drones to launch kamikaze-style attacks on targets in Kyiv and other Ukrainian cities.
“We will be ready to act with the tools at our disposal,” Borrell told a news conference after EU ministers met in Luxembourg. The ministers said Quleiba was very firm in accusing Russia of using Iranian weapons, but that more discussions on specific sanctions or penalties would take place when the evidence became clear.
“We also decided this morning that we need to determine whether Iran provided Russia with military means, including drones, which were then used in Ukraine,” Luxembourg’s foreign minister, Jean Aselborn, told reporters. “I think there’s a high probability of that happening.”
They also agreed to train some 15,000 Ukrainians, including combatants, as early as mid-November, and signed an additional 500 million euros ($487 million) in arms financing.
Belarus to hold live-fire drills with Russia
The Belarusian Ministry of Defense said on Monday that it will conduct joint live-fire exercises and air defense missile launches with the Russian military, Interfax news agency reported.
“The formation’s military units are planned to be deployed at four training grounds in the eastern and central parts of the Republic of Belarus, after which they will start combat training activities,” Interfax news agency quoted a Minsk defense official as saying.
Russia’s defense ministry said last week that Russian troops would be deployed to the country to form a new “regional bloc” amid claims from Minsk that Ukraine was preparing to attack its territory. Belarus has provided no evidence of Ukraine’s aggressive intentions.
Russian fighter jet crashes into residential area
A Russian military plane crashed on Monday in a residential area of ​​Yeysk, a town in southwestern Russia close to the Ukrainian border, the Russian news agency reported, citing the Russian Defense Ministry.
Its statement said the military jet failed after “one of its engines caught fire during takeoff.”
“At the crash site of the Sukhoi Su-34, in a yard in a residential area, the fuel of the plane caught fire,” the ministry said shortly after pictures on social media showed the building engulfed in flames.
The Russian state agency cited emergency services as saying the fire had spread to five of the nine floors of a residential building.
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