Russian President Vladimir Putin has demonstrated no will to end the war in Ukraine, and, ignoring Donald Trump’s plea to stop killing civilians, his armed forces launched nearly 150 drones overnight into Sunday, killing at least four people.
Three people died and four were injured in airstrikes on Kostyantynivka in the Donetsk region, AP reported. A fourth person was killed and a teenage girl wounded in a drone assault in Pavlohrad in the Dnipropetrovsk region, which was attacked for the third night in a row, the locality’s Governor Serhii Lysak said.
At the Vatican right before Pope Francis’ funeral, Trump said he doubted Putin’s will to end the more than three-year war in Ukraine. The US president’s statement came just two days after offering rare criticism of Putin, in which he also urged his counterpart to stop.
“I am not happy with the Russian strikes on KYIV. Not necessary, and very bad timing. Vladimir, STOP! 5000 soldiers a week are dying.” Trump said in a post on his Truth Social platform. “Let’s get the Peace Deal DONE!”
Russia shoots down 5 drones, causes 1k casualties
Russia’s Defence Ministry on Sunday reported that its air defences shot down five Ukrainian drones in the border region of Bryansk and three more over the Crimea, which Moscow annexed illegally in 2014.
According to Russia’s state-owned TASS news agency, Russian forces have killed nearly 1,000 Ukrainian soldiers in the last 24 hours.
“Over the past 24 hours, the Ukrainian armed forces have lost up to 250 servicemen in the Battlegroup South’s responsibility zone. They have inflicted losses on the manpower and equipment of six mechanised brigades,” the agency said, quoting ministry officials.
The agency reported 235 more casualties in the western region of Ukraine, where they “defeated formations of two mechanized, airmobile, assault brigades of the Ukrainian armed forces and three territorial defense brigades.”
“The Ukrainian armed forces lost up to 145 more servicemen” in the northern battle front, TASS added.
The losses in that region include “concentrations of manpower and equipment of the mechanized, tank, two airborne assault brigades of the Ukrainian armed forces, and a defense brigade.” TASS said Ukrainian forces lost 140 more soldiers and equipment in the eastern war front.
Son of CIA official died fighting for Russia
Michael Gloss, the son of a senior Central Intelligence Agency (CIA) official, Juliane Gallina, died last year “while fighting in the conflict in Ukraine,” a CIA spokesperson confirmed, NBC news confirmed.
The Wall Street Journal quoted a CIA source as saying that Gloss was killed last year during a Ukrainian offensive in the Donetsk region after signs that he had become increasingly disillusioned with the US and joined the Russian military.
In social media posts last year, Gloss shared a photo of himself smiling in Moscow’s Red Square and expressed sympathy for Russia’s war effort against what he called “the Ukraine Proxy war.”
Gloss’s mother, Gallina, was appointed last year to her current position at the CIA and has held senior roles overseeing technology and cybersecurity.
Photo via Facebook by Michael Gloss at Moscow’s Red Square
