Latest developments:
- The United States will provide another $300 million in new military aid for Ukraine in a package that is expected to include munitions for Ukraine’s Patriot missile defense system, defense officials tell VOA.
- U.S. President Joe Biden discussed Sweden’s NATO bid with newly re-elected Turkish President Recep Tayyip Erdogan.
Russia blamed Ukraine for a drone attack Tuesday on Moscow, while Russian forces carried out the 17th aerial attack this month against Kyiv, Ukraine’s capital.
Russia’s defense ministry said it either shot down or diverted eight drones that targeted the Moscow area, but Moscow Mayor Sergei Sobyanin said the attack damaged two residential buildings and injured two people.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov told reporters that President Vladimir Putin was briefed on the situation.
There was no immediate comment by Ukrainian officials.
In Washington, a State Department spokesman said the U.S. was still collecting information on what happened. The spokesman said the U.S. does not support attacks inside Russia but rather is focused on supplying arms to Kyiv to help Ukrainian troops retake territory Russia had captured during its 15-month invasion.
The State Department said the conflict could end quickly by Russia pulling its troops from Ukraine, but Putin has shown no indication of ordering a withdrawal.
The latest drone attack followed one in early May that Russian officials said targeted the Kremlin. Russia blamed Ukraine for that attack as well.
Earlier Tuesday, Russia carried out what Ukrainian officials called a “massive attack” targeting Kyiv with more than 20 drones that Ukraine’s air defenses destroyed.
Serhiy Popko, the head of Kyiv's military administration, said on Telegram that after days of Russian aerial attacks that used a combination of drones and missiles, Russia had relied solely on the Iranian-made Shahed drones for its latest assault on Kyiv.
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Ukraine has cited repeated success in downing most of what Russia launches at Kyiv, but often pieces of debris from downed missiles and drones end up hitting buildings or falling into populated spaces.
Popko said debris from Tuesday's attack hit an apartment building and sparked a fire, killing at least one person and injuring three others. Additional debris damaged cars and a house in other parts of the city, he added.
Russian forces have subjected Kyiv to an intensified campaign of attacks ahead of an expected Ukrainian counteroffensive that Kyiv leaders have said will seek to reclaim territory Russia seized in eastern Ukraine since it launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
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“Each such terrorist attack brings us and the whole world to an obvious conclusion: Russia wants to follow the path of evil to the end, that is, to its defeat, because evil cannot have any other end but defeat,” Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in his nightly address Monday. “The world must see that terror is losing.”
Some information for this story was provided by The Associated Press, Reuters and Agence France-Presse.