The Kremlin announced yesterday that the Russian army will decide “how and when” to respond to the attacks launched by Ukraine with drones over the past weekend on Russian air bases.
Kremlin spokesman Dmitry Peskov said during his daily press conference, attended by a correspondent from the French news agency, that the response will come “in a way and at a time that our army deems appropriate.”
Ukraine targeted Russian military aircraft at several airports thousands of kilometers from its borders last weekend after clandestinely introducing explosive drones into Russia.
Moscow also accused Kiev on Tuesday of being behind the explosions that caused the collapse of two bridges last weekend and train accidents that killed seven people and injured more than 100 others, including children, in the Russian regions of Kursk and Bryansk, adjacent to Ukraine.
Russian investigators said yesterday they had opened a criminal case into a terrorist act after an explosion damaged part of a railway line in the Voronezh region.
Meanwhile, at least five people were killed in a Russian drone attack on Ukraine following a phone call between Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin in which the U.S. president reportedly said there would be “no immediate peace” between Kiev and Moscow.
Vyacheslav Chauss, head of the administration of the Chernihiv region, said the nighttime attack on the city of Beryllium in northern Ukraine “killed at least five, including a one-year-old child, and caused damage to buildings in a residential area,” injuring six others who were taken to hospital.
In a message on his Truth Social platform, Trump said he had a “good conversation” with Putin, “but it will not lead to immediate peace” in Ukraine. He added that “President Putin emphatically stated that he will respond to the recent (Ukrainian) attacks on Russian bombers,” noting that the conversation lasted “an hour and 15 minutes.