Russia demands West enter talks to halt ‘destruction’ of Ukrainians

KYIV: Russia on Thursday (Nov 7) demanded that Kyiv’s allies enter into negotiations with Moscow in order to halt its brutish attacks on Ukrainians, as the capital fended off a large-scale drone barrage overnight.
AFP journalists in Kyiv heard Ukrainian air defence units shooting down the Russian drones throughout the night while air raid sirens echoed out over the city.
The head of Russia’s Security Council Sergei Shoigu made the call for negotiations, saying the West faced a choice between entering into talks with Moscow on the war or the continuing “destruction” of Ukraine’s population.
“Now, when the situation in the theatre of combat is not in Kyiv’s favour, the West is faced with a choice,” Shoigu said at a meeting with defence officials of other former Soviet states.
“To continue financing (Kyiv) and the destruction of the Ukrainian population or recognise the current realities and start negotiating,” the former defence minister said.
They were among the first comments from a Russian official since Donald Trump, who has boasted he could end the war in a single day, was confirmed to have been elected president of the United States – Ukraine’s main political and military ally.
And his comments came as Ukrainian officials were taking stock after another night of aerial bombardments across the country and while Moscow claimed the capture of yet another village in east Ukraine.
Moscow said its forces had wrested control of Kreminna Balka, a village that had a pre-war population of fewer than 50 people in the industrial Donetsk region where Ukrainian defences have been pushed back again and again.
Ukrainian media meanwhile reported that Donetsk region authorities were preparing to announce mandatory evacuations from seven more villages in the region that the Kremlin claimed in 2022 was part of Russia.
Its overnight drone attack on Ukraine damaged buildings in the southern Black Sea city of Odesa where AFP journalists saw residents inspecting destroyed cars and residential buildings as dawn broke.
Two people were injured in Kyiv, authorities said, and debris from some 36 drones that were shot down landed in six districts of the capital where the air alert lasted for at least eight hours.
“The attack took place in waves, from different directions, with drones entering the city at different altitudes – both very low and high,” the city administration said.
The air force said it had shot down 74 Russian-deployed drones in 11 different regions, out of a total of 106 drones launched by Moscow at Ukraine.
Russia has systematically targeted the capital with drone and missile barrages since the first day of its invasion launched nearly three years ago on Feb 24, 2022.
Electricity supplies in the western regions of Rivne and Zhytomyr were temporarily cut off, local energy authorities said as a result of the drone attack.
The head of the Kherson region meanwhile said that a man’s body was recovered from the rubble of a house destroyed by the attack in a Russian attack overnight.
And in the eastern Sumy region, the body of another killed person was recovered following a Russian airstrike hours earlier, the interior ministry said.