Moscow announced - today, Monday - that it had thwarted an attack by a Ukrainian drone on the Engels military base in Saratov province, while Ukraine said that the Russians had launched waves of heavy artillery bombardment on its cities in the past twenty-four hours, and demanded its exclusion from the United Nations.

The drone was flying over the Russian air base at Engels, where the long-range strategic bombers are located, which may have been used to target Ukrainian cities and infrastructure.

The ministry said in a statement that 3 Russian soldiers were killed as a result of the falling wreckage of the drone.

She added that the aviation equipment at the airport - located southeast of the capital, Moscow - was not damaged.

Earlier, Ukrainian and Russian media said - Monday morning - that explosions were heard at the Russian Air Force Base of Engels, located hundreds of kilometers east of Ukraine's borders.

This is the second attack targeting the same base within one month.

In the first Ukrainian response to the explosions at the Russian military base, a spokesman for the Ukrainian Air Force said that the successive explosions inside Russian territory were the result of what he described as the "criminal acts of the occupiers" in his country.

The Ukrainian military official added that if the Russians believe that the war will not affect them in depth, then they are wrong, as he put it, and called for waiting a few days until satellite images show the size of the explosions at the base of Engels, according to him.

sneak attempt

In a related context, the Russian Federal Security Service said that what it described as a Ukrainian sabotage group that tried to infiltrate into the Russian province of Bryansk had been eliminated.

And the Federal Security Service added - in a statement - that the security forces clashed with the sabotage group consisting of 4 individuals, before eliminating its members.

The statement confirmed that the Russian security services found foreign weapons, means and communications equipment in the possession of the Ukrainian infiltrators after killing them, in addition to 4 self-made explosive devices.

In turn, the Russian Ministry of Defense announced that 40 Ukrainian soldiers were killed in attacks by its forces on the southern axis of the city of Donetsk (eastern Ukraine).

Ministry spokesman Igor Konashenkov said that Russian forces destroyed workshops to repair weapons of the Ukrainian army, in the city of Kramatorsk, east of the Donbass region.

Russian bombing

On the other hand, the Ukrainian General Staff reported that the Russian forces carried out during the past hours more than 40 attacks by missile systems on a number of regions of the country, stressing that the Russian bombing damaged more than 25 towns.

It added that its forces repelled a continuous attack by the Russians on areas in Donetsk and Luhansk provinces, east of the country.

The Ukrainian power grid operator said that the electricity supply is still facing a significant shortage - on Monday - with restrictions on electricity consumption in 5 Ukrainian regions and in the capital, Kyiv.

The Ukrainian military said that 50 Russian servicemen were seriously wounded in Starobelsk, in the Luhansk region.

He added that the Ukrainian warplanes bombed, during the past hours, 5 areas where Russian soldiers gather, in addition to 9 Russian control points.

In turn, the governor of the Ukrainian province of Luhansk, Sergey Gaidai, said that the Ukrainian forces have not yet controlled the city of Kremina, but the fighting has come very close to its center.

He added that the Russian army does not have the ability to attack from different axes, especially from the Liman axis.

For his part, Al-Jazeera correspondent in Bakhmut reported that Ukrainian military reinforcements had arrived in the city, at a time when the spokesman for the Ukrainian Eastern Front said that the Russian army was preparing to carry out a counterattack in Bakhmut, Luhansk and Avdiivka.

The spokesman added that the Ukrainian army took all precautions in these areas.

Call for the expulsion of Russia

Politically, Ukraine called today, Monday, for Russia's exclusion from the United Nations, more than 10 months after the start of the Russian war on Ukraine, a demand that has no chance of success.

Moscow has veto power in the UN Security Council.

The Ukrainian Foreign Ministry said in a statement that "Ukraine calls on the member states of the United Nations to deprive the Russian Federation of its status as a permanent member of the UN Security Council, and to completely exclude it from the United Nations."

The UN Security Council, in its composition, reflects the balance of power after World War II.

It includes 15 member states, charged with addressing global crises, mainly by imposing sanctions, authorizing military action, and approving changes to the United Nations Charter.

In turn, the Ukrainian authorities said - in a tweet on Twitter - that the war has one end;

It is the defeat of whom the aggressor party called, and severely punished.

negotiation time

On the other hand, Russian Foreign Minister Sergey Lavrov said that the West should - like it or not - negotiate with Russia.

To solve the crisis in Ukraine.

He added - during his meeting with representatives of the Russian media in Moscow - that the West has lost its credibility as a partner in political and economic relations, and made it clear that everyone will soon witness a significant decline in its ability to "direct the global economy", and it will be forced to negotiate, regardless of its desire to do so. lack thereof.

Lavrov accused Washington of pushing the world to take a hostile stance against Russia, pointing out that Moscow needs some time to be able to abandon the dollar.

Russian President Vladimir Putin said - yesterday, Sunday - that his country "is ready to negotiate with all parties to the Ukrainian conflict, about acceptable solutions, but it is up to them. We are not the ones who refuse to negotiate, but they are the ones who reject it."

This is not the first time that the Russian leadership has talked about the possibility of negotiating a solution to the ongoing conflict in Ukraine, but Kyiv insists that it will not accept negotiations and an end to the fighting, unless the Russian forces withdraw from what it describes as the "occupied areas".