Kyiv/Moscow: European Union nations began discussing how to react to Russia’s possible use of Iranian drones in its war in Ukraine as the bloc sanctioned Iran’s morality police and other entities over human-rights violations related to the death of a young woman in police custody.
Russia attacked Kyiv for the second time since last Monday, striking the city center with Iranian-made drones that are essentially winged missiles, capable of loitering until they lock onto a target. Four people were killed and residential buildings damaged, local authorities said.
Ukrainian foreign ,inister Dmytro Kuleba said he addressed a meeting on Monday of EU foreign ministers by videoconference from a bomb shelter in Kyiv to ask the bloc to impose new sanctions on Iran for providing drones to Russia.
The EU’s foreign policy chief, Josep Borrell, said that the bloc is currently gathering evidence from intelligence agencies and elsewhere to determine whether Russia is 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 said at a news conference after EU ministers met in Luxembourg. Ministers said Kuleba was very firm in accusing Russia of using Iranian weaponry, but that additional discussions about specific sanctions or penalties will come when the evidence is clear.
“This morning we also decided that we need to know for sure if military means, including drones, have been provided to Russia by Iran, which are then being used in Ukraine,” Jean Asselborn, Luxembourg’s foreign minister, told reporters. “I think that the probability is quite high that this is the case.”
They also agreed to train around 15,000 Ukrainians, including for combat, as soon as mid-November and signed off on an additional €500 million ($487mn) in weapons financing.
Belarus to hold live-fire exercises with Russia
The Belarusian defence ministry said on Monday it will conduct live fire exercises and anti-aircraft guided missile launches as part of its joint grouping with Russian forces, Interfax reported.
“Military units from the formations are planned to be deployed at four training ranges of the Republic of Belarus in the eastern and central part of the country, after which they will start conducting combat training activities,” Interfax quoted a Minsk defence official as saying.
The Belarusian defence ministry said last week that Russian troops would deploy to the country to form a new “regional grouping” amid claims from Minsk that Ukraine is preparing to attack its territory. Belarus has offered no evidence of Ukraine’s aggressive intentions.
Russian jet crashes into residential area
A Russian military plane crashed on Monday into a residential area in Yeysk, a town in southwestern Russia near the border with Ukraine, Russian news agencies reported, quoting the defence ministry.
Its statement said the military jet had malfunctioned after “one of its the engines caught fire during take-off”.
“At the site of the Sukhoi Su-34 crash, in the courtyard of a residential area, the aircraft’s fuel caught fire,” the ministry said, shortly after images on social media showed buildings engulfed by flames.
The fire reached five out of nine floors of a residential building, according to emergency services, quoted by Russian state-run agencies.