Ukrainian troops fired at incoming Russian drones attacking the capital Kyiv, November 25, 2023

Friday’s Coverage: Russia Kills 5+ Civilians, Wound 11 in Kherson in South

Map: Institute for the Study of War

UPDATE 1315 GMT:

Latvia’s Edgars Rinkēvičs and Switzerland’s Alain Berset are the latest Presidents to visit Kyiv.

Rinkēvičs arrived in the capital as Russia was attacking with more htan 40 drones. He marked the occasion with a photo of himself in a bomb shelter.

Later he and Ukraine Prime Minister Denys Shmyhal discussed Kyiv’s future in Europe.

Zelenskiy hailed talks with Switzerland’s Berset on infrastructure, aid, and reconstruction.

UPDATE 1041 GMT:

Russia’s Justice Ministry has added former Prime Minister Mikhail Kasyanov to its list of “foreign agents”.

Kasyanov, an expert on foreign debt, was Finance Minister in 1999-2000. He led negotiations to restructure massive Soviet-era commercial debts, securing a large discount.

He then became Deputy Prime Minister in 2000 and Prime Minister in the first Putin administration from 2001 to February 2004, just before Putin started his second term.

Last year Kasyanov left Russia as he criticized Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

ORIGINAL ENTRY: Ukraine’s officials says Russia has launched the largest drone attack of Vladimir Putin’s 21-month invasion.

Air defense forces destroyed 71 of about 75 Iranian-made Shahed “kamikaze” drones.

More than 40 Iranian-made Shahed drones were downed in the capital Kyiv. Five people, including an 11-year-old girl, were wounded in the assault from the early hours of Saturday until dawn. Mayor Vitalii Klitschko said buildings were damaged across the city, with 17,000 people left without electricity.

Klitschko noted that the assault occurred as Ukraine prepared to mark the 90th anniversary of the Holodomor, when an estimated 3.9 million Ukrainians were starved to death by a Soviet-imposed famine.

This night, on the eve of Holodomor, Russian barbarians staged the most massive drone attack on the capital.

We remember, and the world is aware of the crimes committed 90 years ago. And we will do everything so that our children and grandchildren remember what Russia is doing today.

The aggressor must be held accountable once and for all so that future generations of Ukrainians do not die because of Russia’s sick fantasies.

Russia had paused attacks on Kyiv from September through earlier this month. But Ukrainian officials, including President Voldoymyr Zelenskiy, warned that Moscow would pursue a second “energy war”this winter.

From October 2022 through early 2023, the attacks on infrastructure and other civilian sites knocked out half of Ukraine’s power grid. Air defenses — bolstered by international aid — held out, and engineers repaired most of the damage by April.

Ukraine air defenses intercepted all 14 Iran-made attack drones launched by Russia between 8 p.m. Tuesday and 3 a.m. Wednesday. No casualties or major damage were reported.

“They Tried to Exterminate Us. They Failed.”

President Zelenskiy also commented

on the drone assault “precisely on the eve” of Holodomor Remembrance Day: “Russia’s leadership appears to be proud of its ability to kill people.”

Zelenskiy summarized:

How can one want to kill an entire people? To wipe out an entire nation? How can one take away the very last from people? The last food, the last means of subsistence, the last hope for life and the last chance for salvation? Normal people cannot imagine or understand this.

But there is something we know for sure. They tried to exterminate us, to subjugate us, to torture us. They failed. They wanted to conceal the truth from us and hush up the terrible crimes forever. They failed. They wanted to confuse us, to mislead us, to make us not believe, to doubt, to forget, and therefore to forgive. They failed.

In his nightly address to the nation, Zelenskiy summarized discussions with leaders such as Dutch Prime Minister Mark Rutte and Lithuania’s Prime Minister Ingrida Šimonytė.