Ukraine targets Moscow with its biggest drone attack of the war
Ukraine attacked Moscow on Sunday with at least 34 drones, the biggest drone strike on the Russian capital since the start of the war in 2022, forcing flights to be diverted from three of the city’s major airports and injuring at least one person.
Russian air defences destroyed another 36 drones over other regions of Western Russia in three hours on Sunday, the defence ministry said.
“An attempt by the Kyiv regime to carry out a terrorist attack using an airplane-type drones on the territory of the Russian Federation was thwarted,” the ministry said.
Russia’s federal air transport agency said three airports — Domodedovo, Sheremetyevo and Zhukovsky — diverted at least 36 flights, but then resumed operations. One person was reported injured in Moscow region.
A woman in her 50s suffered burns to her face, neck and hands after drones sparked a blaze in her village southeast of Moscow, local Gov. Andrei Vorobyov reported.
No one was hurt in Moscow itself, according to Mayor Sergei Sobyanin, although Russian channels on the messaging app Telegram carried eyewitness reports of drone debris setting fire to suburban homes.
Moscow and its surrounding region, with a population of at least 21 million people, is one of the biggest metropolitan areas in Europe.
For its part, Russia launched a record 145 drones overnight, Ukraine said. Kyiv said its air defences downed 62 of those.
Ukraine also said it attacked an arsenal in the Bryansk region of Russia, which reported 14 drones had been downed in the region.
Russia has been hit with roughly 16,000 international sanctions since its full-scale invasion of Ukraine, but its economy hasn’t stalled. CBC’s Briar Stewart breaks down how it’s staying afloat — with a lot of help from China.
Unverified video posted on Russian Telegram channels showed drones buzzing across the skyline.
The war in Ukraine is entering what some officials say could be its final act after Moscow’s forces advanced at the fastest pace since the early days of the war and Donald Trump was re-elected as president of the United States.
Trump, who takes office in January, said during campaigning that he could bring peace in Ukraine within 24 hours, but has given few details on how he would seek to do this.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said on Wednesday that he spoke with U.S. president-elect Donald Trump following his victory. Additionally, multiple outlets have reported that billionaire Elon Musk joined the call as well. Nicholas Drummond, a former British Army officer, says Musk could be a ‘good’ influence on Trump.
When Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy called Trump to congratulate him on his presidential election victory, Tesla CEO and Trump supporter Elon Musk joined the call, according to media reports. Musk owns SpaceX, which provides Starlink satellite communication services that are vital for Ukraine’s defence effort.
Kyiv, itself the target of repeated mass drone strikes from Russian forces, has tried to strike back against its vastly larger eastern neighbour with drone strikes against oil refineries, airfields and strategic early-warning radar stations.
Moscow ‘umbrellas’ to counter drone attacks
While the 1,000-kilometre front has largely resembled grinding First World War trench and artillery warfare for much of the war, one of the biggest innovations of the conflict has been drone warfare.
Moscow and Kyiv have both sought to buy and develop new drones, deploy them in innovative ways, and seek new ways to destroy them — from farmers’ shotguns to advanced electronic jamming systems.
Moscow has developed a series of electronic “umbrellas” over Moscow, with additional advanced internal layers over strategic buildings, and a complex web of air defences which shoot down the drones before they reach the Kremlin at the heart of the Russian capital.
Both sides have turned cheap commercial drones into deadly weapons while ramping up their own production. Soldiers on both sides have reported a visceral fear of drones — and both sides have used macabre video footage of fatal drone strikes in their propaganda.
Putin vows a response
Russian President Vladimir Putin, who has sought to insulate Moscow from the grinding rigour of the war, has called Ukrainian drone attacks that target civilian infrastructure such as nuclear power plants “terrorism” and has vowed a response.
Moscow, by far Russia’s richest city, has boomed during the war, buoyed by the biggest defence spending splurge since the Cold War.
There was no sign of panic on Moscow’s boulevards Sunday. Muscovites walked their dogs while the bells of the onion-domed Russian Orthodox churches rang out across the capital.
Published at Sun, 10 Nov 2024 14:23:15 +0000
Former U.S. commerce secretary says he ‘can’t imagine’ Trump would tax Canadian energy
As the world prepares for U.S. president-elect Donald Trump to impose a global tariff when he takes office in January, his former commerce secretary says he “can’t imagine” Trump would want to tax Canadian energy.
Wilbur Ross, a billionaire investor who served in Trump’s cabinet from 2017 to 2021, said on Rosemary Barton Live that taxing Canadian energy would “raise [U.S.] costs and not help anything with more American jobs.”
“We import a lot of energy from Canada,” Ross told CBC’s chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton on Sunday’s episode. “I can’t imagine the [president-elect] would want to tax that.”
Since Trump’s decisive election win, federal Canadian officials, provinces and industries have begun preparing for his second administration and one of his key campaign promises — a minimum 10 per cent global tariff.
Canadian officials received no reassurances in conversations with multiple Trump allies ahead of the U.S. election, CBC News learned from one official privy to the details of those talks.
In an exclusive interview, chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton speaks with Donald Trump’s former secretary of commerce, Wilbur Ross, about the U.S. president-elect’s agenda on trade and tariffs, and his advice for how Canada should respond.
Ontario and Alberta, two provinces that would be hit hard by Trump’s proposed tariff, have begun taking steps to try to influence the new U.S. administration.
Earlier this week, Ontario Minister of Economic Development Vic Fedeli said the province will start a marketing push in January to remind the U.S. of the importance of bilateral trade.
James Rajotte, Alberta’s representative to the United States, said on Rosemary Barton Live Sunday that the province is reaching out to American lawmakers to make sure “our position is heard on issues like tariffs on the energy sector [and] North American energy security.”
“In terms of tariffs, we’re obviously making the argument that we’re interconnected…. Let’s not put up any barriers between that energy trade,” Rajotte told Barton.
Chief political correspondent Rosemary Barton speaks with Alberta’s senior representative to the United States, James Rajotte, and Ontario’s representative to Washington, David Paterson, about their concerns and messages to Washington ahead of a new Trump administration.
The Alberta oil and gas sector accounted for $127 billion worth of trade last year with the U.S., according to ATB Financial. That represented 82 per cent of the province’s total exports and made the U.S. its largest trading partner — by far.
Meanwhile, Canada’s ambassador to the United States, Kirsten Hillman, said on Rosemary Barton Live that Canadian officials have “done a lot of work to lay the groundwork for a substantive conversation on this policy.”
Hillman also said it’s clear that “former president Trump believes in tariffs as a policy tool,” and that Canada needs to “demonstrate through facts” that applying tariffs to Canadian goods would negatively affect U.S. jobs and revenue.
Trump ‘will listen’ to Canada: Ross
When asked how Canada should approach Trump to get him to listen to the country, Ross said Canada “has to realize that America does have a much sturdier set of principles and policies now than what it had before.”
“I think [Trump] will listen. He was respectful of [Prime Minister Justin] Trudeau. He respects other world leaders,” Ross said.
“So if I were Canada, I would be looking for what things Canada can volunteer to do to facilitate the relationship with the U.S. … There’s going to have to be concessions on both sides.”
Trump and Trudeau have had friction in the past. After a G7 summit in Charlevoix, Que., in 2018, Trump called Trudeau “very dishonest” and “weak.”
At the time, Canada and the U.S. were in NAFTA talks and at odds over adding a sunset provision to the new trade agreement.
Hillman said that Trump and Trudeau have “a really warm relationship” and that “Canadians get fixated on the fact that former president Trump can use quite colourful language.”
“But I think we also know, if we watch, it’s important to see what [Trump] does and it’s important to see how he operates with partners, not just what he says,” Hillman said. “And I can say that we’ve had a very effective relationship in the past and I’m actually very confident that we will again.”
In a phone call Wednesday evening, Trudeau congratulated Trump on winning a second term and discussed trade and security issues. A source familiar with the call who spoke to CBC News said that overall, the conversation was warm and friendly.
Published at Fri, 01 Nov 2024 08:11:21 +0000
