Ukraine war briefing: senior Ukrainian commander resigns after deadly Russian strike
The commander of Ukraine's land forces, one of the most senior positions in the country's military, announced on Sunday that he was tendering his resignation, saying he felt 'responsibility' for the deaths of at least 12 soldiers killed in a Russian strike on a training ground earlier that day. Maj Gen Mykhailo Drapatyi has been in charge of Ukraine's vast wartime land army since November last year. 'This is a conscious step dictated by my personal sense of responsibility for the tragedy at the 239th training ground, which resulted in the deaths of our soldiers,' Drapatyi wrote on Facebook. An earlier statement from the land forces' Telegram page said 12 soldiers had been killed and 60 wounded by a Russian missile strike on a military training site, the latest in a string of similar attacks.
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in his nightly video address, said he would summon senior commanders, including top commander Oleksandr Syrskyi, to consider the circumstances of the strike. 'This is not the first strike of its kind when Ukraine has lost personnel. I have called a meeting … to deal with this,' he said. 'We need all our fighting men at the front to defend Ukraine.' Russia's military issued a statement saying its forces had launched a missile on a Ukrainian military 'tent camp' in central Dniepropetrovsk region.
Ukraine said on Sunday it had worth billions of dollars as far away as Siberia, in its longest-range assault of the war. In a spectacular claim, Ukraine said it had damaged $7bn worth of Russian aircraft parked at four airbases thousands of kilometres (miles) away, with unverified video footage showing aircraft engulfed in flames and black smoke. A source in the Ukrainian security services (SBU) said the strikes hit 41 planes that were used to 'bomb Ukrainian villages'.
Several Russian and Ukrainian media outlets reported that Ukraine had carried out the operation by launching drones from lorries parked near military airfields deep inside Russia. Ukrainian officials told the media that the operation – codename 'Spiderweb' – had been in preparation for more than 18 months. The drones were first smuggled into Russia and later concealed under the roofs of small wooden sheds which were loaded on to trucks and driven to the perimeter of the airbases. The roof panels of the sheds were lifted off by a remotely activated mechanism, allowing the drones to fly out and begin their attack, the official said.
Zelenskyy praised the attacks as a 'brilliant operation' that was 'aimed exclusively at military targets' and caused 'truly significant losses' for Russia. Those who assisted in the operation had been withdrawn from Russia on the eve of the attacks and were safe, he said. Russia has said several 'participants' have been arrested.
Russian investigators on Sunday said they believed 'explosions' had caused , derailing trains, killing at least seven people and injuring dozens. The incidents were being treated as terrorism. In Bryansk, which borders Ukraine, a road bridge collapsed onto a railway line late on Saturday, derailing a passenger train heading to Moscow and killing at least seven people. A rail bridge in neighbouring Kursk also collapsed overnight, derailing a freight train and injuring the driver, officials said. Kursk also borders Ukraine. Separately, railway track on the Unecha-Zhecha section in Russia's Bryansk region was damaged without casualties, the national operator, Russian Railways, said.
The attacks came just ahead of the second round of direct peace talks between the two sides in Istanbul. After days of uncertainty over whether Ukraine would even attend, Zelenskyy said defence minister Rustem Umerov would meet Russian officials. The first round of the talks more than a week ago yielded the biggest prisoner exchange of the war – but no sense of any consensus on how to halt the fighting.
The two sides will in Turkey present their respective documents outlining their ideas for peace terms, according to US envoy Keith Kellogg, though it is clear that after three years of intense war, Moscow and Kyiv remain far apart. Russia's lead negotiator, presidential adviser Vladimir Medinsky, was quoted by Tass news agency as saying the Russian side had received a memorandum from Ukraine on a settlement. Zelenskyy had complained for days that Russia had failed to provide a memorandum with its proposals.
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