Russia has vowed that it will “respond” to Ukraine’s container-based drone strike on its grounded strategic bombers, with President Donald Trump stating he had sought to dissuade Russia’s President Vladimir Putin to break the cycle of violence.
Vladimir Putin’s personal spokesman Dmitry Peskov said the Russian Federation will respond “in such a way and at such a time as our military deems appropriate” to what he called a “terrorist attack” by Ukraine’s intelligence agency. Over the weekend Ukraine launched swarms of suicide drones smuggled into deep Russia in modified shipping containers parked near air bases.
Per Kyiv’s claims, 40 warplanes including strategic bombers and AWACS intelligence craft were destroyed: Russia denies this, claiming that while Ukraine started fires these were extinguished and damage was minimal. Reuters states American analysis of satellite imagery of the strike sites suggests the truth, as ever, lies somewhere between the two positions with 20 warplanes said to be hit and 10 totally destroyed.
Despite Moscow’s denialism, Russia has reacted angrily to the strikes, calling them and other attacks on railway infrastructure on the same day “terrorism”.
President Donald Trump revealed that he’d spoken by telephone to Russian President Vladimir Putin this week and that these audacious Ukrainian strikes, and Russia’s desire for revenge, had been raised in the conversation. In a written statement, Trump revealed: “We discussed the attack on Russia’s docked airplanes… President Putin did say, and very strongly, that he will have to respond to the recent attack on the airfields.”
Later adding further depth, President Trump said while in conversation with German Chancellor Friedrich Merz in the Oval Office that Ukraine “attacked pretty harshly, they went deep into Russia, and [Putin] actually told me… he said we have no choice but to attack based on that, and it’s probably not going to be pretty. I said don’t do it, you shouldn’t do it, you should stop it.”
Russia briefly teased after the weekend’s strikes that they would consider withdrawing from the Ukraine War peace talks hosted in Turkey over the attack, but they later walked back from this position. Russian state media paraphrased their Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, who said the attack was “large-scale criminal provocations aimed at disrupting the negotiations”.
Putin’s man Peskov later revealed the President had “endorsed” this position and that talks would continue. Nevertheless, he said Putin had described Ukraine as being governed by a “terrorist regime”, given the sabotage against Russian passenger railways by Ukrainian commandos was claimed to have killed seven passengers.
Meanwhile, Ukraine’s President Volodymyr Zelensky chastised Russia for rejecting every peace proposal offered and prolonging the killing. He said on his THursday evening address to the nation: “Russia is proud of this — it is proud of its ability to kill… This has become the grim daily reality of what Russians, unfortunately, are allowed to do. And the world, unfortunately, continues to allow it.”
Of the peace talks that took place on Monday and resolved without apparent major development, Zelensky continued: “They reject everything. The only things they find acceptable are ruins and death. They must be held accountable for this”.
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