Russian defense minister visits front zone – DW – 10/25/2023

The upper chamber of the Russian parliament approved a law withdrawing Moscow’s ratification of the global nuclear test ban treaty, the final stage before it goes to President Vladimir Putin for signing.

The Federation Council approved the law by 156 votes to zero.

Russia’s lower house of parliament, Duma, approved the law earlier in October.

Meanwhile, Moscow has received proposals from Washington on arms control and is currently studying them, state news agency RIA quoted Russian Deputy Foreign Minister Sergei Ryabkov as saying.

Ryabkov said Russia was not ready to resume dialogue on strategic stability with the US, but was prepared to consider new proposals from Washington on prisoner exchanges.

Falling debris from an intercepted Russian drone has injured 16 people in the Khmelnytskyi region of western Ukraine, according to authorities there. 

“In the Shepetivka district, the shooting down of air targets caused them to fall into the territory of a critical infrastructure facility,” the deputy head of the regional administration, Serhiy Tyurin, said on Telegram.

He said there was an explosion that damaged an administrative building as well as residential buildings and cars. 

Russia launched 11 kamikaze drones at Ukraine during the night, the Ukrainian Air Force said on Wednesday morning. All of them were shot down, the military said. 

Meanwhile, a local resident was killed in an early morning air attack on Ukraine’s southern Kherson region, the governor Oleksandr Prokudin said.

Earlier this week, local authorities ruled on the mandatory evacuation of families with children from the three districts of the Kherson region due to the ongoing bomb attacks.

Russian Defense Minister Sergei Shoigu visited the front zone in eastern Ukraine, the ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.

He visited the “Vostok” command post to meet with senior officers and to hear a report on the situation on the front line, on the training of drone-operators and on preparations for fighting in winter conditions, it said.

The defense ministry’s statement included a video showing Shoigu in a helicopter and later in a staff bunker. It was not clear whether the facility was actually on Ukrainian territory occupied by Russia. The statement did not say when Shoigu had made his visit. 

It comes as Russian troops have stepped up their attacks in recent weeks on the industrial city of Avdiivka, in eastern Ukraine.

In the war against Ukraine, which has now lasted more than 20 months and was ordered by Russian President Vladimir Putin, representatives of the Russian leadership have only very rarely ventured to the front, unlike Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, who regularly visits.

dh/lo (AFP, AP, dpa, Reuters)