Four Ukrainian Police Officers Wounded In Russian Shelling, Kyiv Says
By RFE RL
(RFE/RL) — Four Ukrainian police officers were wounded on October 29 when a shell fired by Russian forces exploded by their vehicle in the frontline city of Siversk in the eastern Donetsk Province, Kyiv said.
“The condition of the law enforcement officers is satisfactory. They are receiving outpatient medical treatment,” the Interior Ministry said in a Telegram post.
“The officers’ vehicle was damaged” in the attack, it added.
Earlier on October 29, Ukraine’s Air Force said it had shot down five Iranian-made Shahed drones launched by Russian forces overnight. The attacks targeted Ukraine’s Khmelnitskiy, Mykolayiv, Poltava, and Zaporizhzhya regions, authorities said.
In Moscow, Russia’s Defense Ministry said on Telegram that its air-defense systems shot down some 30 Ukrainian drones over the Black Sea and the Crimean Peninsula overnight.
Authorities in Russia’s southern Krasnodar region bordering the Black Sea said a fire broke out at an oil refinery in the early hours of October 29. They didn’t specify the cause, but local media outlets claimed that the fire had been caused by a drone strike or debris from a downed drone.
Drone strikes and shelling on the Russian regions bordering Ukraine as well as in Moscow-annexed Crimea have become a regular occurrence. Kyiv never publicly acknowledges responsibility for attacks on Russian territory or the Crimean Peninsula.
Also on October 29, a top ally of Russian President Vladimir Putin said Russia will confiscate assets belonging to European Union states it deems unfriendly if the bloc “steals” frozen Russian funds to help Ukraine.
Vyacheslav Volodin, the chairman of the State Duma, made the comment after Ursula von der Leyen, the president of the European Commission, said on October 27 that the EU executive was working on a proposal to pool some of the profits derived from frozen Russian state assets to support Ukraine and its postwar reconstruction.
Volodin responded that “such a decision would require a symmetrical response” from Russia.
“In that case, far more assets belonging to unfriendly countries will be confiscated than our frozen funds in Europe,” he said.
Von der Leyen said the value of frozen Russian sovereign assets was $223.15 billion, and recalled that the bloc had decided that Russia must pay for Ukraine’s reconstruction.
