A massive drone strike rattled Moscow and its suburbs overnight into Sunday, injuring a woman and temporarily halting traffic at some of Russia’s busiest airports, while a huge nighttime wave of Russian drones targeted Ukraine, officials reported.
A top U.K. defense official meanwhile said that Russian forces had suffered their worst month of casualties in October since their full-scale invasion of Ukraine in February 2022.
The chief of the U.K. defense staff, Tony Radakin, told CBS News partner BBC that Moscow’s troops suffered an average of 1,500 dead and wounded “every single day,” bringing their total losses in the war to 700,000.
“The enormous pain and suffering that the Russian nation is having to bear because of Putin’s ambition,” Radakin said.
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Russia’s defense ministry said a total of 70 drones were shot down overnight in Russian territory, including 34 over Moscow’s outskirts. Russia’s aviation authority said flights were briefly grounded at major international airports including Sheremetyevo and Domodedovo.
A woman in her 50s suffered burns to her face, neck and hands after drones sparked a blaze in her village southeast of Moscow, local Gov. Andrei Vorobyov reported.
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No one was hurt in Moscow itself, according to Sobyanin, although Russian channels on the messaging app Telegram carried eyewitness reports of drone debris setting fire to suburban homes.
According to Radakin, ordinary Russians were paying “an extraordinary price” for the war, even as a grueling, monthslong Russian offensive in Ukraine’s industrial east continues to eke out gains. He did not say how UK officials had calculated the Russian casualty figures.
“There is no doubt that Russia is making tactical, territorial gains and that is putting pressure on Ukraine,” he said.
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But he said the losses were for “tiny increments of land,” and that Moscow’s mounting defense and security spending was putting an increasing strain on the country.
Radakin insisted that Ukraine’s Western partners should stand by it for “as long as it takes” to beat back Russian aggression, even as allies of U.S. President-elect Donald Trump have signaled that Kyiv may have to cede territory to seek peace.
On Sunday, the Kremlin’s official spokesman voiced cautious optimism about Trump’s upcoming presidency, saying: “At least, he talks about peace … he does not talk about confrontation.”
“The signals are positive. Trump, during his election campaign, said that he perceives everything through deals, that he can make deals that will lead everyone toward peace,” Dmitry Peskov told reporters at a briefing.
“He does not talk about a desire to inflict a strategic defeat on Russia, and this favorably distinguishes him from the current (US) administration,” Peskov said.
U.S. National Security Adviser Jake Sullivan told “Face the Nation with Margaret Brennan” on Sunday that President Biden will urge Mr. Trump not to abandon Ukraine after taking office in January.
The Republican president-elect and Mr. Biden are set to meet at the White House on Wednesday.
While Sullivan did not specify what foreign policy topics the two would discuss, he said their conversation would feature the Ukraine-Russia war.
“President Biden will have the opportunity over the next 70 days to make the case to the Congress and to the incoming administration that the United States should not walk away from Ukraine, that walking away from Ukraine means more instability in Europe,” Sullivan said.
When asked if that means Mr. Biden will ask Congress to pass legislation to authorize more funding for Ukraine, Sullivan deferred.
“I’m not here to put forward a specific legislative proposal. President Biden will make the case that we do need ongoing resources for Ukraine beyond the end of his term,” Sullivan said.
Both Moscow and Kyiv have kept a tight lid on casualty figures since the start of the full-scale war despite regular reports of Russian forces taking huge losses following “human wave” attacks that aim to exhaust Ukrainian defenses.
Meanwhile, Russia overnight launched a “record” 145 drones at Ukrainian territory, according to Ukraine’s air force, 62 of which were shot down. A further 67 were “lost”, the air force said, a likely reference to electronic jamming that caused the drones to veer off course.
At least one person was injured as Russian drones struck residential areas in Ukraine’s southern port of Odesa, local Gov. Oleh Kiper reported.