Ukraine repels large Russian missile and drone attacks

KYIV, July 13 (AP/AFP): Ukrainian officials said air defenses shot down 20 Iranian-made drones fired by Russia mostly at the Kyiv region early Thursday morning, but wreckage fell on four districts of the capital, wounding two people and destroying several homes.
The latest barrage by the Kremlin's forces began shortly after midnight, and explosions shook different parts of the city. Two people were hospitalized with shrapnel wounds, authorities said.
In the capital, rescuers extinguished a fire in a 16-story building, as well as in a non-residential building, the Interior Ministry said. Debris also damaged the frontage of a 25-story apartment building, it said.
Russian strikes have become a grim part of everyday life in Ukraine over the almost 17 months of the war.
Volodymyr Motus, a 22-year-old resident of the 25-story building, carefully picked his way across the floor a destroyed apartment, his footsteps accompanied by the sound of shattered glass. The mangled furniture was coated in a thick layer of dust.
F-16 jets in Ukraine
will be seen as
nuclear threat: Russia
Russia will regard Western F-16 fighter jets sent to Ukraine as a "nuclear" threat because of their capacity to carry atomic weapons, Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said on Thursday.
"We will regard the very fact that the Ukrainian armed forces have such systems as a threat from the West in the nuclear sphere," Lavrov was quoted as saying by the Russian foreign ministry.
Australia's defence minister on Thursday cast doubt over a proposal to bolster Ukraine's military with retired fighter jets, saying Kyiv's request for extra air power posed a "complicated question".
Australia ramped up its support for Ukraine on the sidelines of the NATO summit in Lithuania overnight, pledging to send an additional fleet of 30 armoured Bushmaster infantry vehicles at a cost of US$67 million.