Ukraine War Briefing: Kyiv Conducts Significant Drone Attack Russia 1,000km from Frontline

High residential buildings were hit in the Russian city of Kazan, casualties reported. Zelenskyy reveals meetings the CIA chief.

• Ukraine conducted a significant drone attack on the Russian city of Kazan, located 1,000km (620 miles) from the frontline, on Saturday. The attack damaged residential buildings and temporarily shut down the airport. A drone struck a high-rise apartment block and damaged skyscraper in the city, which has a population of over 1.3 million, but no casualties were reported, according to local officials. Videos posted on Russian social media networks showed drones hitting a high-rise building and causing fireballs. Foreign ministry spokeswoman Maria Zakharova stated that two drones hit 37-store apartment block and Ukraine had been targeting an unspecified industrial facility, which suffered no damage.
• Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy on Saturday, without specifically mentioning the strike on Kazan: “We will definitely continue to strike at Russian military targets with drones and missiles.” Some Kazan residents were evacuated—Russian authorities did not provide figures—and all major public events in the area were cancelled as a precaution after the strikes. Russian civil aviation Rosaviats temporarily closed Kazan Airport, one of the country’s busiest, but reopened it later on Saturday. Alongside the drones that hit the apartment block, three drones were shot down and three were suppressed by air defense systems, the foreign ministry said. The attack on Kazan, about 800 km east of Moscow, came day Russian strikes on the Ukrainian capital Kyiv killed one person and wounded 13, after five were killed by a Ukrainian attack on the Russian border region of Kursk
• Zelenskyy announced on Saturday that he had met with CIA Director William Burns in Ukraine marking a rare public disclosure of their meeting The Ukrainian President mentioned that he had met Burns on multiple occasions throughout the war, but their meetings had remained undisclosed. “Bill Burns paid his last visit to Ukraine as CIA Director,” Zelenskyy stated on Telegram, posting a photo of them hands in front of a state crest of Ukraine. “He and I have had many meetings during this war, and I am grateful for his assistance. Typically, such meetings are not publicly reported, and all our meetings – in Ukraine, in other European countries, in America, and in other parts of the world – were held without official information.” Burns set to leave the CIA post as U.S. President-elect Donald appoints his own candidate.
• Russia’s defense ministry that the captured a village on Saturday near the key city of Kurakhove in eastern Ukraine, where Russian forces have made significant advances in recent months. The village of Kantynopolske is located approximately 10 kilometers southwest of Kurakhove, an industrial town is a prominent target for Russian forces.
• On Saturday, the Russian embassy in London described the’s planned transfer to Ukraine of more than £2bn ($2.bn) by Russian assets as “fraudulent scheme”. Britain in that it lend Ukraine £2.26 as part of a much larger loan from the Group of Seven nations, by frozen Russian central bank assets to help purchase weapons and rebuild infrastructure. UK Defence Minister Healey stated that the money would be solely for Ukraine’s military could be used to help develop drones capable of traveling further than some long-range missiles.