Ukraine war: Russian shelling kills two as Kyiv deploys air defences

“The Russian army shelled Nikopol with heavy artillery in the morning,” the governor of the Dnipropetrovsk region, Sergei Lyssak, said on Telegram.

In Russia, two people were injured by Ukrainian shelling on a village in the Bryansk region bordering Ukraine.

Animals from a herd also died or were injured in the attack, and a vehicle was “damaged”, regional governor Alexander Bogomaz added on Telegram.

Earlier, Ukraine reported an additional Russian night attack, involving 35 Iranian-made Shahed drones, 34 of which were shot down.

The attacks came “in waves” during the course of the night and originated from annexed Crimea, the eastern shore of the Sea of Azov, as well as Kursk, a Russian city close to Ukraine’s northern border, the Ukrainian air force said on Telegram.

Kyiv accuses the Kremlin of seeking to terrorize the civilian population and destroy its energy infrastructure in order to plunge the population into darkness and cold, as it did last winter.

Millions of people were left without power, something the Ukrainian authorities want to avoid this year at all costs.

Ukraine has since reinforced its anti-aircraft defense systems with Western weapons that can shoot down most of the explosive drones and missiles sent by Russia.

Two men ‘financed Ukrainian ultranationalists with drugs’

Two men, including a Ukrainian, have been sentenced to prison terms for manufacturing drugs to finance the Ukrainian ultranationalist movement Pravy Sektor (Right Sector) before the start of the Russian offensive in February 2022, a St Petersburg court announced on Thursday.

Alexander Tsepelev, a Ukrainian citizen, will have to spend 16 years in a strict prison colony, one year less than his “accomplice” Alexander Pankratyev, whose nationality was not specified.

The Russian authorities accuse the two men of manufacturing mephedrone, a synthetic drug, in a flat from November 2021 to early March 2022.

The aim of the operation, according to the court, was to send “the proceeds from the production of mephedrone” to the Pravy Sektor group.

In total, they transferred around $10,800 via a Ukrainian intermediary up to 24 February 2022, the date on which the Russian offensive began, the Russian court said.

Ukrainian and Polish ministers meet to resolve border row

Ukraine’s infrastructure minister, Oleksandre Koubrakov, announced on Thursday that he had met his recently appointed Polish counterpart for the first time in an attempt to find a solution to the blockade of Polish lorries at the border between the two countries.

Oleksandre Koubrakov said that the “main subject” of his meeting on Wednesday in Warsaw with Dariusz Klimczak was “the unblocking of the border”, which is weighing heavily on Ukraine’s economy.

“We hope to find a common position this week” with a Polish delegation expected in Kyiv for a new round of negotiations, he said.

Ukraine relies heavily on road transport with Poland for its exports and imports. The Polish truckers, who are denouncing “unfair competition” from their Ukrainian colleagues, have been blocking the border since early November, creating interminable queues.

“We have presented key figures and analytical data which show that the problems mentioned by the Polish protesters do not actually exist”, the Ukrainian minister assured.

The new Polish Prime Minister, Donald Tusk, has promised to find a solution with the disgruntled hauliers.