War Ukraine – Russia, last minute | New batch of Russian drones over kyiv: Ukrainian air defense claims to have shot down about 15

A hundred medical journals from around the world on Thursday launched a rare joint appeal for urgent action to eliminate nuclear weapons in the face of the “significant and growing” threat of catastrophe.

The call follows veiled threats by Russian President Vladimir Putin to use such weapons in Ukraine, repeated missile launches by North Korea and the blocking of non-proliferation initiatives.

“The danger is important and growing,” the editors-in-chief of eleven prestigious journals, including the BMJ, Lancet, JAMA and the New England Journal of Medicine, write in a joint editorial.

“Nuclear-weapon states must eliminate their nuclear arsenals before they eliminate us,” the article said.

“The fact that all these leading journals are agreeing to publish the same editorial points to the extreme urgency of the current nuclear crisis,” said Chris Zielinski of the World Association of Medical Press Editors.

The text is published the same week as a meeting in Vienna of the preparatory committee for a new review of the UN Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty, in force since 1970.

Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of the Security Council of Ukraine, reaffirmed President Volodimir Zeleski's assertions that progress, although slower than expected, could not be accelerated as human lives were at stake.

“No one can set deadlines for us, except ourselves.. there is no set schedule,” said. “I have never used the term counteroffensive. There are military operations and they are complex, difficult and depend on many factors.”

The Russian Defense Minister, in his account of the fighting, said that Ukrainian forces had made unsuccessful attempts to advance in several sectors in both the south and north of the Donetsk region, Reuters reports.

He also said Russian forces had launched attacks on towns around Bakhmut, including Kurdyumovka on the city's southern outskirts and Chasiv Yar, the first major city to the west.

Oleksiy Danilov, secretary of Ukraine's Security Council, said Russian forces had plenty of time in the months of occupation to prepare defenses and lay extensive minefields.

“The enemy has prepared very well for these events,” he told national television, Reuters reports..

“The number of mines in the territory that our troops have retaken is insane.. On average, there are three, four, five mines per square meter.”

The Romanian Black Sea port of Constanta is trying to adjust to a growing influx of grain from Ukraine, diverted from its traditional export routes by the Russian invasion.

The pressure on Romanian infrastructures since Russia withdrew last month from the agreement that allowed Ukraine to export grain through the Black Sea has increased in recent days in road transport, due to the shelling of Ukrainian river ports on the Danube.

“70% of the cereals arrive to us by barges by the river”, explains to Afp Dan Dolghin, director of Comvex, one of the companies that receives the Ukrainian merchandise in this Romanian city to load it on the boats.

Since the end of the agreement for the export of grain, Moscow systematically attacks the nerve points that still allow Ukraine to export its crops with droppers.

The towns of Reni and Izmail, in the Odessa region bordering Romania, used to be the main outlet for Ukrainian agricultural products across the Danube and are now military targets for Russia.

Russian forces have not advanced on the front but are entrenched in heavily mined areas they control, making it difficult for Ukrainian troops to move east and south, Ukrainian officials said on Wednesday, Reuters reports.

Russian accounts of front-line fighting said 12 Ukrainian attacks had been repulsed in the Donetsk region, a focal point of Russian advances for months.

Much of the Russian military activity focused on airstrikes that damaged grain infrastructure in the Ukrainian Danube port of Izmail..

Russia's Defense Ministry also said its forces had destroyed a Ukrainian naval drone attempting to attack a Russian warship escorting a civilian vessel in the Black Sea.

Ukrainian air defense shot down about 15 Russian drones heading towards Kiev overnight from Wednesday to Thursday, the head of the capital's military administration Sergiy Popko said, Afp reports.

Ukrainian forces “detected and destroyed almost 15 air targets” approaching Kiev, Popko said on Telegram, adding that they were Iranian-made “Shahed” explosive drones.

“According to the information available so far, there were no casualties or damage in the capital,” it added.

The air alert, the 820th in kyiv since the Russian invasion began in February 2022, lasted for three hours, Popko said.

The night before, the Ukrainian army claimed to have shot down more than a dozen drones in the sky over the capital.

The falling debris caused minor material damage, but no injuries.

Separately, Russian drone strikes caused significant damage early Wednesday to Ukrainian port locations in Izmail on the Danube, an infrastructure that has become crucial for exports.

The Russian Defense Ministry announced its decision to restrict sea and air transport in the Kerch Strait, which separates the annexed Crimean peninsula from mainland Russia, due to continued Ukrainian attacks, reports Efe.

For this reason, the navigation of all surface and submarine ships is prevented, as is the anchoring of any type of vessel, the military statement said.

The flight and ditching of aircraft is also strictly prohibited, as is the presence of people in the water and other activities at sea.