UKRAINIAN forces claim to have killed three Russian perpetrators of the Bucha massacre in a slew of revenge bombings.
It comes as Kyiv marked its Independence Day by unleashing a wave of drone strikes crippling key energy infrastructure in Russia.
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Ukraine‘s military intelligence unit GUR said three Russian soldiers dubbed “Butchers of Bucha” were wiped out in surgical bombings in the Russian-occupied Luhansk region.
They were targeted in the Luhansk region while operating as a mobile air defence group to cover a Russian military-repair base.
Bucha is a town close to Kyiv where Russian troops were accused of perpetrating appalling war crimes as they sought to storm Kyiv in 2022.
Hundreds of Ukrainian people were subjected to executions, torture, mutilation, and sexual violence including rape used by as weapon of war.
After the Russian retreat, mass graves were found where dozens of bodies were hastily buried by Putin’s occupying force.
There were numerous accounts of indiscriminate killings of civilians, including those seeking to flee the violence.
The revenge attack came in Kalynove village, where the Russian soldiers were linked to the Bucha atrocities.
Ukrainian military officials said: “In 2022, [these dead] Russian occupiers directly took part in committing war crimes in the city of Bucha.
“The detonation was in the yard of an apartment building where six Russian invaders were staying with their military transport.
“As a result of the explosion, two enemy pickups with machine guns were destroyed, one landed with ammunition.”
“There will be just retribution for every war crime committed against the Ukrainian people.”
Meanwhile, the Russia‘s defence ministry said at least 95 Ukrainian drones had been intercepted across more than a dozen Russian regions.
The attaclc come on August 24, the day that Ukraine celebrates its declaration of independence from the Soviet Union in 1991.
One of the drones was shot down over the Kursk Nuclear Power Plant in western Russia, one of the country’s biggest energy nuclear facility.
It detonated upon impact and sparked a fire, forcing a sharp fall in the capacity of a reactor at according to the facility.
The plant said the fire had been extinguished, adding there were no casualties or increased radiation levels.
There was damage to a transformer which supplies the plant, and the power of reactor number three was reduced by 50 per cent.
Russian authorities said Ukrainian drones had also been shot down over areas sometimes far from the front, including Saint Petersburg in the northwest.
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The attacks caused tourist mayhem at St Petersburg’s Pulkovo airport as more than 99 flights were diverted or delayed at the busy hub.
Ten drones were shot down over the port of Ust-Luga on the Gulf of Finland, sparking a fire at a fuel terminal owned by Russian energy group Novatek, regional governor Aleksandr Drozdenko said.
Ukrainian president Volodymyr Zelensky said: “This is how Ukraine strikes when its calls for peace are ignored.
“Today, both the US and Europe agree: Ukraine has not yet fully won, but it will certainly not lose. Ukraine has secured its independence. Ukraine is not a victim; it is a fighter.”
Ukraine meanwhile said Russia had attacked it overnight with a ballistic missile and 72 Iranian-made Shahed attack drones, 48 of which the air force said had been shot down.
A Russian drone strike killed a 47-year-old woman in the eastern region of Dnipropetrovsk, the governor said.
Patience wearing thin
It all comes amid Donald Trump’s rising frustration with Putin for dragging out the war.
Washington is now trying to get Moscow to agree to a one-on-one meeting with Zelensky.
Pressure has been mounting on Putin to sit down with Zelensky since the White House summit – but the latest language from Russia looks suspiciously like well-worn stalling tactics.
Trump hoped he would be able to convince Putin to stop the bloodshed when he met the dictator in Anchorage.
But since then, little tangible progress has been made towards a peace deal.
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In a social media post, Trump appeared to hint that he is open to Ukraine launching more attacks on Russia.
He suggested that it would be “impossible” for Ukraine to win the war without attacking Russia.
He said: “It is very hard, if not impossible, to win a war without attacking an invader’s country.
“It’s like a great team in sports that has a fantastic defence, but is not allowed to play offence.
“There is no chance of winning! It is like that with Ukraine and Russia.”
Trump sets deadline
He set a two-week time frame for assessing peace talks between Russia and Ukraine.
Don told Todd Starnes on Newsmax: “I would say within two weeks we’re going to know one way or the other.
“After that, we’ll have to maybe take a different tack.”
Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov said Putin is ready to meet Zelensky only after working through a list of vague “issues”.
Lavrov said: “Our president has repeatedly said that he is ready to meet, including with Mr Zelensky.”
But he insisted the meeting would only happen “with the understanding that all issues that require consideration at the highest level will be well worked out”.
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