WASHINGTON/KYIV – Washington's top general has said the crash of a U.S. surveillance drone after being intercepted by Russian jets showed Moscow's increasingly aggressive behavior while Russia warned Washington that flying drones near Crimea risked escalation. A day after the U.S. drone went down over the Black Sea, defense ministers and military chiefs from the U.S. and Russia held rare telephone conversations on Wednesday with relations at their lowest point in decades over Moscow's invasion of Ukraine. Moscow's Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu told his U.S. counterpart, Lloyd Austin, that American drone flights by Crimea's coast "were provocative in nature" and could lead to "an escalation … in the Black Sea zone," a ministry statement said. This could be due to a conflict with your ad-blocking or security software. Please add japantimes.co.jp and piano.io to your list of allowed sites.

'Special Report' panelists discuss the impact of the Abrams tanks for Ukrainian forces amid the Russian onslaught. Ukraine sounded alarms across the country on Thursday after Russia launched a wave of missile and drone strikes, officials said. Air sirens were also heard in the country's capital city of Kyiv, where missile defense systems successfully struck down 15 targets. There were no immediate reports of injuries. Ukrainian military general Serhii Popko said missiles were fired "in the direction of Kyiv," but did not disclose if Russia was intending to target government buildings or something else.

Former Defense Intelligence Agency Officer Rebekah Koffler discusses why peace talks are unlikely between Russia, Ukraine, and the U.S., on'Varney & Co.' As we have welcome the New Year, many on both sides of the Atlantic are wondering whether the Russia-Ukraine conflict, the biggest war in Europe since World War II, will come to an end this year. The largest country on the continent, Ukraine, is being depopulated, having lost more than 100,000 of its citizens to death or injury. Europe itself is being destabilized by financial woes and influx of refugees from war-torn areas. Contrary to the hopes of many, not only will 2023 not bring peace, it will likely see the most bloodshed yet, as the key warring parties – Moscow, Kyiv, and Washington, D.C. – are all postured for decisive escalation. Here's why we are probably entering the "hottest" phase of this war.

Several waves of Russian drones targeted critical infrastructure in Ukraine's capital and surrounding areas, officials said, as Moscow extended its constant bombardment into a second day in 2023. An explosion hit Kyiv's Desnianskiy district and drone debris hit a road in the district, in the capital's northeast, damaging a building next to it, Ukrainian officials reported early on Monday. As a result of overnight strikes on Kyiv, energy infrastructure facilities were damaged, causing power and heating outages, Mayor Vitali Klitschko said. Ukraine's air defence systems destroyed 20 aerial objects above Kyiv early on Monday, its military said, after air raid sirens wailed for more than four hours. Earlier, one person was wounded by debris from a drone destroyed over the city.

Russia's New Year assault on Ukraine left three people dead and wounded another 50 as Moscow on Sunday claimed to have thwarted Kyiv's "terror attacks" on the homeland. The Ukrainian capital and other cities came under fire from missiles and Iranian-made drones. The Ukrainian air force said Sunday 45 Iranian-made drones had been destroyed overnight. Thirteen were shot down at the end of 2022 and another 32 after midnight, the air force said. Andriy Nebitov, the head of the Kyiv police, posted on Facebook a picture of wreckage of a downed drone that featured the words "Happy New Year" in Russian.

Residents of the Ukrainian capital Kyiv were urged to head to air raid shelters as sirens wailed across the city early on Friday morning, a day after Russia carried out the biggest aerial assault since it started the war in February. Shortly after 2:00am (00:00 GMT), Kyiv's city government issued an alert on its Telegram messaging app calling on residents to proceed to shelters. Oleksiy Kuleba, governor of the Kyiv region, said on Telegram that an "attack by drones" was under way. A Reuters witness 20km (12 miles) south of Kyiv heard several explosions and the sound of anti-aircraft fire. Local media outlet The Kyiv Independent reported that air raid alerts were blaring in the Kyiv, Cherkasy and Kirovohrad regions due to possible Russian drone attacks.

Ukraine's capital has been targeted by a wave of drone attacks by Russia's military that again struck "critical infrastructure". About 20 drones were deployed to Kyiv and the surrounding area early Monday, according to officials, with air defence systems destroying about 15 of the unmanned aerial vehicles. Air raid sirens blasted in the early morning before the sky was declared clear at 5:50am (07:50 GMT). The Kyiv city administration said on its Telegram account that a critical infrastructure point was hit, but did not provide further details. "The enemy is attacking the capital," the administration said.

The Kremlin has said Patriot missile defence systems would be a legitimate target if sent to Ukraine to intercept the barrage of incoming Russian missiles that have crippled the war-torn country's power infrastructure. Former Russian President Dmitry Medvedev on Wednesday warned NATO against equipping Kyiv with Patriot missile batteries. It is likely the Kremlin will view the move as an escalation. The comments come as Moscow said no "Christmas ceasefire" was on the cards after nearly 10 months of the war in Ukraine, even as the release of dozens more prisoners, including a United States national, showed some contact between the two sides remained. Russia and Ukraine are not currently engaged in talks to end the fighting, which is raging in Ukraine's east and south while Moscow has carried out missile and drone strikes on power and water facilities across the country, including the capital city Kyiv.

Ukrainian forces said Wednesday they had shot down an entire swarm of Iranian-made drones launched at the capital by Russian troops in their latest attack on Kyiv. Explosions rang out over a central neighbourhood in the early hours of Wednesday, the mayor said, and AFP journalists saw law enforcement and emergency service workers inspecting metal fragments at a snow-covered impact site. "The terrorists started this morning with 13 Shaheds," Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said, referring to the Iran-made weapons. "According to the preliminary information, all 13 were shot down by our Ukrainian air defence systems." He added that residents of the capital, which has now been subjected to nearly ten months of air raid sirens and frequent aerial attacks since Russia invaded the country in February, should stay alert to government warnings of incoming attacks.

Kyiv, Ukraine – A mysterious weapon struck a target deep in Russia's heartland. On Monday morning, a deafening roar that sounded like a landing jet plane woke up a town spreadeagled in the flat steppes of the Volga River region. According to surveillance camera footage, a lightning-like flash followed by a thunderous explosion shook Engels, named after the philosopher and home to more than 300,000 people. It hit one of Russia's largest and most important military airfields that hosts strategic Tupolev Tu-160 and Tu-95 bombers. The planes are capable of carrying nuclear warheads, and Moscow has repeatedly used them to rain non-nuclear missiles on Ukraine.