An overnight Russian attack left debris from a downed drone strewn on the doorstep of Ukraine’s parliament building, according to Kyiv.
Maksym Buzhanskyi, a Ukrainian MP, said that the Kremlin had deliberately targeted the country’s parliament, called the Verkhovna Rada.
“The drone tried to crash into the Rada building, but was shot down and was destroyed on the threshold,” he said.
Photos of the neoclassical building showed charred wreckage from at least one destroyed Russian drone scattered across the parliament’s squares and front lawns.
The Verkhovna Rada press office said that the building was undamaged and the Ukrainian Air Force reported that 58 of 67 drones in the Russian attack were shot down.
Missile defence systems ring Kyiv’s hilltop government quarter that also houses Volodymyr Zelensky’s offices, the cabinet and the central bank.
Russia has increased its bombardment of Ukraine over the past month in revenge for Kyiv’s invasion of the Kursk region. The Kremlin also wants to knock out Ukrainian energy infrastructure and undermine civilian morale ahead of winter.
The 30-month invasion of Ukraine has turned into a war of attrition, with both sides desperate to maintain ammunition supplies.
Iranian ballistic missiles
US and European officials have now confirmed that Iran has been supplying Russia with ballistic missiles.
They told the Wall Street Journal that at least 200 Iranian missiles with a range of up to 500 miles have been sent to Russia and that Iran will continue to send arms across the Caspian Sea to Russian ports.
Previously, the Kremlin’s only foreign supplier of these weapons had been North Korea.
“This is not the end,” said a senior European official.
The West’s confirmation of Iranian missile supplies to Russia backs up similar reports earlier this year from Iranian officials.
Up to now, Iran’s main arms export to Russia had been thousands of Shahed drones which the Kremlin then fired at cities in Ukraine. In return for weapons, Iran receives oil, space technology support and Russian fighter jets.
The Institute for the Study of War, a US-based think tank, reported that it was unclear which type of missiles Iran had sent to Russia, but said that the Kremlin intended to fire them at “civilian infrastructure over the coming fall and winter to further destabilise Ukrainian society”.
Kursk invasion ‘has backfired’
On the frontline in Ukraine’s eastern Donbas region, Russian forces continue to press on towards the strategically important town of Pokrovsk.
Russian military bloggers said that Ukraine’s invasion of Russia’s Kursk region in August has backfired because it failed to draw Russian forces away from Donbas and instead weakened its own frontlines.
“There are only three miles left to the city,” said the Two Majors Russian military blog. “The Russian Army is drawing up the southern flank and twisting the front from the north towards Kurakhovo, forming a pocket.”
The Kremlin has also been using Ukraine’s Kursk invasion to drive propaganda to use in its military recruitment.
Data from the Telegram social messaging app, which is heavily used in Russia, showed that Russian defence ministry recruitment adverts were viewed 13.8 million times in August, compared to the usual 1.5 million monthly views.
Analysts said that an increased signing-on bonus, as well as propaganda from the Kursk invasion, has fuelled growing interest in joining the Russian army.
Russian regional elections
Despite the invasion, Kursk is one of 21 of Russia’s 83 regions voting in governor elections this weekend. There are also local legislature elections in 13 regions, including in occupied Crimea.
Putin wants to use the elections to create the image of a supportive Russia with high turnouts and big wins for his United Russia candidates. Independent observers have already reported vote rigging.
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