AfriPulse
Here are the key events on day 1,304 of Russia’s war on Ukraine.
Police officers and soldiers work at the site of suspected remnants of a Polish missile found in the village of Choiny, in eastern Poland, on Friday [Wojtek Jargilo/EPA] Here is how things stand on Saturday, September 20:
Regional security
Estonian officials say three Russian MiG-31 fighters entered Estonia’s airspace “over the Gulf of Finland” for a total of 12 minutes on Friday and called for NATO talks over the “unprecedented and brazen intrusion”.
Moscow denied violating Estonia’s airspace, with the Russian defence ministry claiming its jets flew over neutral waters of the Baltic Sea as they travelled from northwestern Russia to the Baltic exclave of Kaliningrad.
The incident came a week after more than 20 Russian drones entered Polish airspace and drew immediate condemnation from NATO and European countries.
NATO spokesperson Allison Hart accused Moscow of “reckless behaviour” and said the alliance had scrambled aircraft to intercept the Russian jets.
British Defence Secretary John Healey said that Russia’s “reckless and dangerous activity” was “the third violation of NATO airspace in recent days”.
France’s Ministry of the Armed Forces also responded, saying in a statement: “This incursion into Estonia is unprecedented for more than 20 years”.
United States President Donald Trump said he had not been briefed on the incident but said, “I don’t like when that happens.” It “could be big trouble”, he added.
Fighting
Ukrainian forces launched a wave of drone attacks on Russia, killing a 55-year-old man in the village of Amon, in the Kursk region, and a truck driver in the village of Otradovka in the Belgorod region, according to an official and the Russian state-run TASS news agency.
Ukrainian forces attacked the Belgorod region with more than 100 drones and more than 15 munitions in a 24-hour period, Governor Vyacheslav Gladkov wrote on Telegram.
In Ukraine, President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday said three people were killed and dozens wounded when Russia launched 40 missiles and around 580 drones in a “massive attack” – one of the largest in past weeks – on the Dnipro region.
In the overnight attacks, “a missile with cluster munitions directly struck an apartment building” in the eastern city of Dnipro, Zelenskyy posted on social media.
Separately, a crew of journalists from Ukraine’s Channel Five and their driver were injured by a landmine near Pokrovsk in the Donetsk region, Ukrinform reported on Saturday.
Russian forces seized the village of Muravka in Ukraine’s Donetsk region and Novoivanovka in the Zaporizhia region, according to TASS.
Politics and diplomacy
European Commission President Ursula von der Leyen presented a 19th package of sanctions on Russia, urging members of the European Union to adopt new curbs on Russia’s exports of liquefied natural gas (LNG).
Zelenskyy welcomed the measures, saying they “marked an important step that will increase pressure on the Russian war machine and produce a tangible effect”.
Trump said he and Chinese President Xi Jinping discussed Russia’s war on Ukraine in a call on Friday. “I believe he would like to see it ended,” Trump told reporters in the Oval Office of Xi’s view of the war, after the call.
Source: Al Jazeera English | Read the Full Story…
