Russia inflicts ‘night of terror' on Ukraine
Credit: State Emergency Service of Ukraine
Russia has unleashed a second 'night of terror' in Ukraine killing at least 12 people.
Moscow has intensified strikes over the weekend, battering cities and towns across Ukraine, including on the capital Kyiv. Ukrainian officials said 45 Russian missiles and 266 attack drones had been shot down.
Three children, aged eight, 12 and 17, were killed in the north-west region of Zhytomyr, officials said. The 'massive night attack' also killed four people in the western Khmelnytskyi region, four in the Kyiv region and one in Mykolaiv in the south.
Yulia Svyrydenko, Ukraine's first deputy prime minister, said the attacks clearly demonstrated Russia's intentions to prolong the war.
'Another night of terror in Ukraine, as Russians targeted our civilian population across the country with ballistic missiles, cruise missiles, and drones – killing people in their own homes,' she wrote on X.
'Among the dead are children... Russia's targets are clear: homes, families, children.'
She added: 'Ukraine is standing. But we are asking, not for sympathy, but for action. Air defense [sic]. Sanctions. Pressure. Now.
'All delays, failed promises, and playing by Russia's rules only cost more innocent lives – and Russia has no intention of stopping with Ukraine.'
The Russian military said on Saturday that Ukraine deployed 788 drones and missiles since Tuesday.
Restrictions were imposed in Moscow on at least four airports, including the main hub Sheremetyevo, the Russian civilian aviation authority said.
The attacks come as the two sides pursue their biggest prisoner swap since Moscow launched its full-scale invasion in February 2022.
Volodymyr Zelensky, the Ukrainian president, said he expected officials to press on with a prisoner swap agreed during talks in Istanbul on May 16, despite the ongoing strikes.
On Saturday, 307 Russian prisoners of war were exchanged for the same number of Ukrainian soldiers, according to announcements in Kyiv and Moscow.
Both sides received 390 people in the first stage on Friday. They are expected to exchange 1,000 each in total.
Russia has signalled it will send Ukraine its terms for a peace settlement after the exchange, without saying what those terms would be.
The two enemies have held regular prisoner swaps, but this would be the largest so far, if completed.
Broaden your horizons with award-winning British journalism. Try The Telegraph free for 1 month with unlimited access to our award-winning website, exclusive app, money-saving offers and more.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
J.K. Rowling Reignites Calls To Strip lmane Khelif Of Olympic Gold Over Leaked Medical Reports
"Harry Potter" author J.K. Rowling has spoken out again against Algerian boxer Imane Khelif following a leaked report alleging she is biologically male. Despite being disqualified by the IBA in 2023, Khelif competed and won gold at the Paris 2024 Olympics based on her female ID. Besides J.K. Rowling, Imane Khelif also received backlash and criticism from several other notable figures, including Elon Musk, , and President Donald Trump. Rowling has reignited the gender and sport debate by supporting calls to revoke Olympic gold from Algerian boxer Imane Khelif, following a leaked medical report that allegedly identifies the athlete as biologically male. In her post, Rowling wrote: "It's a win for women because they won't be battered to death in the ring by men." She added: "If you had any idea what physical tests women go through routinely in their lives, you'd know a cheek swab is no bigger deal than flossing your teeth. Any more moronic questions, wing them over." British media personality also spoke out about the alleged test result, writing, "The biology-denying woke brigade abused and shamed me for saying it was outrageous and dangerous for Khelif to be beating up women at the Olympics. I'm ready for their apology, but won't hold my breath." The leaked medical document dated March 17, 2023, allegedly confirmed Khelif's male chromosomal profile and links directly to Khelif's removal from a competition in 2023, when the International Boxing Association (IBA) disqualified her over "failing gender eligibility tests." Despite IBA's disqualification, Khelif went on to compete at the Paris Olympics, where she claimed gold in the women's category. Her eligibility at the time was reportedly based on her self-identified gender and possession of a female passport. The leaked results, which became publicly available following their release by journalist Alan Abrahamson on the 3 Wire Sports website, describe Khelif's chromosome pattern as "male karyotype" and categorize the findings as "abnormal." According to the Daily Mail, the test was reportedly carried out at Dr Lal PathLabs in New Delhi, an internationally certified laboratory recognized by the American College of Pathologists and ISO standards. Rowling's remarks and those of other famous critics of Khelif have led to fresh calls for the Algerian boxer's gold medal to be revoked. The revelation of the leaked medical report comes on the heels of World Boxing's recent decision requiring Imane Khelif to undergo sex verification testing to remain eligible for future participation in women's boxing events. The emergence of the document also casts doubt on previous statements made by IOC spokesperson Mark Adams, who had downplayed the legitimacy and implications of the test during a press conference at the Paris Olympics. At the time, Adams dismissed the 2023 test results as unreliable, calling them "ad hoc" and lacking legitimacy. "Those tests are not legitimate tests," he said. "The tests themselves, the process of the tests, the ad hoc nature of the tests are not legitimate." Adams added: "The testing, the method of the testing, the idea of the testing, which happened kind of overnight. None of it is legitimate, and this does not deserve any response." World Boxing imposed an indefinite suspension on Khelif, barring her from competing in the women's division at any of its sanctioned events, including the upcoming Eindhoven Box Cup slated for June 5–10, 2025. In an official letter sent to the Algerian Boxing Federation, the governing body stated: "Imane Khelif may not participate in the female category at the Eindhoven Box Cup, 5-10 June 2025 and any World Boxing event until Imane Khelif undergoes genetic sex screening in accordance with World Boxing's rules and testing procedures." Additionally, World Boxing, now holding provisional oversight of Olympic boxing for LA 2028 under the International Olympic Committee (IOC), has introduced new eligibility requirements, including PCR testing for the SRY gene, which detects the presence of a Y chromosome. According to the organization, the PCR test is a molecular method designed to identify specific genetic markers, particularly the SRY gene, which signals the presence of a Y chromosome and is used to determine biological sex. The test can be administered via nasal or oral swab, saliva sample, or blood draw. This testing forms part of World Boxing's forthcoming "Sex, Age and Weight" policy, which the body says is intended to promote fairness and ensure the safety of all athletes competing in the sport. World Boxing's firm response comes amid backlash following the Paris Olympics, where both Khelif and Taiwan's Lin Yu-ting won gold in the women's division. Italian boxer Angela Carini, who faced Khelif in an early round, later shared that the blows she received left her fearing for her life. Similarly, Mexico's Brianda Tamara Cruz, who fought Khelif in 2022, admitted, "I don't think I had ever felt like that in my 13 years as a boxer, nor in my sparring with men." It was the collective pushback, especially from Latin American boxing federations, that ultimately influenced World Boxing to adopt a stricter policy. Their advocacy emphasized the importance of recognizing biological sex to protect fairness and the physical safety of female athletes.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
UK trade minister to meet USTR Greer to discuss implementing tariff deal
LONDON (Reuters) -Britain's trade minister Jonathan Reynolds will meet U.S. Trade Representative Jamieson Greer on Tuesday to discuss the implementation of a trade deal that has been complicated by the announcement of fresh U.S. tariffs on steel. Reynolds will review recently agreed deals with counterparts from the U.S. and EU, Britain's two biggest trading partners, during a three-day trip to Paris and Brussels this week. The deals struck last month are both political pacts rather than formal trade agreements, and the details of their implementation have not been set out. Starmer and U.S. President Donald Trump agreed to reduce tariffs on British imports of cars and steel to the United States, but its delayed implementation means tariffs may go up before they come down. Last week, Trump said that tariffs on imported steel would rise to 50% from 25% from Wednesday. Industry body UK Steel said it understood that British producers would likely be impacted by the change, which would be a "body blow" to the sector. A British government spokesperson said the UK was engaging with the United States on the implications of the announcement ahead of Reynolds' meeting with Greer to discuss implementation timelines of the bilateral agreement in Paris. "We recognise our relationship with G7 allies and EU counterparts must continue to evolve and deliver a better trading environment for our businesses and exporters," Reynolds said in a statement ahead of the trip. Reynolds will also meet Indian Minister of Commerce Piyush Goyal to discuss a recently negotiated Free Trade Agreement, which is still having its legal text finalised and is subject to ratification in both countries, which could take months. After meetings with G7 and OECD counterparts in Paris, Reynolds will hold talks with EU trade commissioner Maros Sefcovic. As part of efforts to reset ties without fundamentally reopening the Brexit deal, Britain and the EU have agreed to conclude talks to remove red tape on its food trade, but details of the plan have yet to be finalised. In advance of that agreement coming into force, Britain on Monday said it would scrap border checks on fruit and vegetables imported from the European Union, that had been due to be effective beginning in July.
Yahoo
an hour ago
- Yahoo
Mass Drone Attack On Exposed Russian Bombers Puts Spotlight On Hardened Aircraft Shelter Debate
New details continue to emerge about Ukraine's unprecedented covert drone attacks on multiple Russian air bases, but the full scale and scope of the resulting losses remain unclear. It is the latest global event to put a spotlight on an already fierce debate about whether the U.S. military should be investing in more hardened aircraft shelters and other new fortified infrastructure at bases abroad and at home, something TWZ has been following closely. What we just saw in Russia is a nightmare scenario that we have already been sounding the alarm on for years now, which broadly underscores the growing threats posed by drones. Readers can first get up to speed on what is known about the attacks, which were focused on trying to neutralize Russian strategic bombers that are regularly used to conduct cruise missile attacks on Ukraine, in our latest reporting here. Authorities in Ukraine say they attacked five bases with a total of 117 small and relatively short-range first-person-view (FPV) type kamikaze drones, destroying or at least damaging 41 aircraft. Andriy Kovalenko, an official with Ukraine's National Security and Defense Council, has also said that 'at least 13 Russian aircraft were destroyed.' These claims have yet to be independently verified and they should be taken as speculative at this time. The russian terrorist state no longer has the ability to produce Tu-95s or any kind of strategic bomber. This is a tremendous victory for Ukraine. — Michael MacKay (@mhmck) June 1, 2025 The drones were launched from container-like enclosures built to look like small sheds or tiny homes on tractor-trailer trucks. Questions remain about exactly how they were guided to their targets, but at least some of them were human-in-the-loop guided by operators using first-person-view 'goggles' or tablet-like devices. 5/5. After launching, the trailers self-destructed to avoid detection or recovery (see photos). — Roman Sheremeta (@rshereme) June 2, 2025 From the imagery that has already emerged, a key aspect of the Ukrainian drone attacks was that the Russian planes that were targeted were parked out in the open. The fact that aircraft sitting on open flightlines are especially vulnerable, including to uncrewed aerial threats, is not new. 'One day last week, I had two small UASs that were interfering with operations… At one base, the gate guard watched one fly over the top of the gate check, tracked it while it flew over the flight line for a little while, and then flew back out and left,' now-retired Air Force Gen. James 'Mike' Holmes, then head of Air Combat Command (ACC), said in 2017, now nearly a decade ago. 'Imagine a world where somebody flies a couple hundred of those and flies one down the intake of my F-22s with just a small weapon on it.' At that time, TWZ noted that it would be easier for an adversary to just attack parked planes in the open, offering a way to knock out large numbers of aircraft before they can even get airborne. Since then, we have already had multiple opportunities to re-highlight the ever-growing risk of something like this occurring to America's armed forces, including scenarios involving more localized attacks on bases far from active war zones by lower-end weaponized commercial drones. The Russian military has been acutely aware of drone threats to air bases even before the all-out invasion of Ukraine in 2022. A mass drone attack on Russia's Khmeimim Air Base outpost in Syria in 2017 was a watershed moment that TWZ highlighted at the time as a sign of things to come. Regular drone attacks on Khmeimim in the late 2010s also prompted the construction of new hardened aircraft shelters there. Last year, Russia's Minister of Defense Andrey Belousov said that 'a schedule for airfields has already been drawn up and that shelters will definitely be built' in response to Ukrainian drone and missile attacks, according to independent Russian journalist Alexander Kots. The construction of new aircraft shelters, hardened and unhardened, had already been visible in satellite imagery of a growing number of air bases in Russia since late 2023. However, from what has been observed to date, the focus has been on better protecting tactical jets at bases closer to Ukraine. Just recently, Belousov was shown a model of a hangar with a Tu-160 Blackjack bomber inside as part of a presentation on new developments relating to prefabricated and modular structures for various military purposes. Whether or not the hangar model reflects an active project, or is a proposal or notional concept of some kind, is unclear. Tu-160s were among the aircraft types Ukraine explicitly targeted with its covert drone attacks this weekend. Russian Defense Minister Andrei Belousov was shown a model of a hangar for Tu-160 strategic bombers during a visit last — Rob Lee (@RALee85) June 2, 2025 Russia's construction of new aircraft shelters is part of an expanding global trend that has also been observed in China, North Korea, and elsewhere. Hardened Aircraft Shelters of J-10 Fighters — Húrin (@Hurin92) September 8, 2023 Geolocation: 39.4069444, 125.8983333Sunchon AB, DPRK (North Korea)10/27/23 Sentinel-2 L2A pass shows paving and shelters (16 total) completed. Sunchon is home to the KPAAF 57th Air Regiment (MiG-29s).@GeoConfirmedhttps:// — Evergreen Intel (@vcdgf555) December 1, 2023 Satellite imagery of Nasosnaya Air Base – Republic Of Azerbaijan Construction of hangars for JF-17 fighter jets, which began in early 2024, is now in its final stages. The base will soon be ready to host a full squadron of 16 aircraft. — آریان || Āryān (@BasedQizilbash) May 28, 2025 The U.S. military does have hardened aircraft shelters are various bases, but has made very limited investments in building more since the end of the Cold War. Calls for new shelters, hardened or otherwise, have been pointedly absent from U.S. military planning in recent years, at least publicly. Some American officials have actively pushed back on the idea, often citing the cost of building new hardened infrastructure, which is funding that could be applied elsewhere. The U.S. Air Force, for instance, has been more focused on active defenses, such as surface-to-air missile systems, and expanding the number of operating locations that forces could be dispersed to, if necessary. 'So, we will have the need for bases, the main operating bases from which we operate,' Air Force Gen. Kevin Schneider, head of Pacific Air Forces (PACAF), said at the Air & Space Forces Association's (AFA) 2025 Warfare Symposium in March. 'The challenge becomes, at some point, we will need to move to austere locations. We will need to disaggregate the force. We will need to operate out of other locations, again, one for survivability, and two, again, to provide response options.' Those are requirements that 'cost money' and force the Air Force to 'make internal trades,' such as 'do we put that dollar towards, you know, fixing the infrastructure at Kadena [Air Base in Japan] or do we put that dollar towards restoring an airfield at Tinian,' Schneider added. There is growing criticism that U.S. forces are being left increasingly vulnerable, including to drone attacks, by a lack of investment in hardened aircraft shelters and other new fortified facilities. A recent deployment of six of the U.S. Air Force's 19 prized B-2 stealth bombers to the Indian Ocean island of Diego Garcia, which wrapped up earlier this month, had offered a new datapoint in the shelter debate. Diego Garcia only has four specially designed B-2 shelters open, which are not hardened in any way, and the bombers were seen parked out in the open while on the island. More recently, a detachment of F-15E Strike Eagles arrived on the island to help provide force protection to other assets still there. 'While 'active defenses' such as air and missile defense systems are an important part of base and force protection, their high cost and limited numbers mean the U.S. will not be able to deploy enough of them to fully protect our bases,' a group of 13 Republican members of Congress had written in an open letter to the heads of the U.S. Air Force and U.S. Navy in May 2024. 'In order to complement active defenses and strengthen our bases, we must invest in 'passive defenses,' like hardened aircraft shelters and underground bunkers, dispersal of forces across both within a base and across multiple bases, redundant logistical facilities, and rapid runway repair capabilities.' 'While hardened aircraft shelters do not provide complete protection from missile attacks, they do offer significantly more protection against submunitions than expedient shelters (relocatable steel shelters). They would also force China to use more force to destroy each aircraft, thereby increasing the resources required to attack our forces and, in turn, the survivability of our valuable air assets,' they added. 'Constructing hardened shelters for all our air assets may not be economically feasible or tactically sensible, but the fact that the number of such shelters on U.S. bases in the region has barely changed over a decade is deeply troubling.' In January, the Hudson Institute think tank in Washington, D.C., released a report that underscores the points made above about the benefits that new hardened aircraft shelters offer in terms of reducing vulnerability and increasing the resources an enemy would have to expend. The authors of the Hudson report assessed that 10 missiles, each with a warhead capable of scattering cluster munitions across areas 450 feet in diameter, could be enough to neutralize all aircraft parked in the open and critical fuel storage facilities at key airbases like Marine Corps Air Station Iwakuni in Japan, Naval Support Facility Diego Garcia in the Indian Ocean, or Langley Air Force Base in Virginia. The general points made here about the particular danger of submunitions from cluster weapons could also apply to drones with similarly sized warheads like the ones Ukraine just used in its attacks on Russia's air bases. Even fully-enclosed, but unhardened shelters could provide a modicum of additional defense against these kinds of threats. Last year, officials at two U.S. air bases – Langley Air Force Base in Virginia and Seymour Johnson Air Force Base in North Carolina – expressed interest in the possibility of adding nets or other similar physical defensive measures to existing open-ended sunshade-type shelters to help protect against attacks by smaller drones. It's unclear whether there has been any movement since on actual implementation. Nets are among the drone defenses currently used on both sides of the ongoing conflict in Ukraine. Waves of still-mysterious drone incursions over Langley Air Force Base in December 2023, which TWZ was the first to report on, remain a particular focal point for broader calls from Congress and elsewhere to better protect U.S. military facilities against uncrewed aerial threats. What happened at Langley is just one of a still-growing number of worrisome drone incidents over and around U.S. military facilities, training ranges, and warships off the coast of the United States, as well as critical civilian infrastructure, in the past decade or so, many of which we have reported first. Overseas bases well outside of established conflict zones that host American forces have been the site of concerning drone overflights in recent years, as well. There was also a flurry of reported drone sightings last year over New Jersey and other parts of the United States last year, many of which quickly turned out to be spurious. However, the surge in public attention underscored a real threat, as Ukraine has now demonstrated in dramatic fashion. While Ukraine says its covert drone attacks on Russia took more than a year to plan, prepare for, and stage, they also underscore how the basic barriers to entry for carrying out drone attacks, especially ones involving weaponized commercial designs, have long been low in terms of cost and technical aptitude. The operation notably leveraged ArduPilot, described as an 'open source autopilot system' that is freely available online. Of course open source software has been used in war before, but seeing ArduPilot Mission Planner being used to blow up Russian strategic bombers is still wild. — John Wiseman (@ 2025-06-01T15:55:48.877Z Additional footage shows another FPV drone overflying the airfield; multiple Tupolev Tu-95 bombers are seen aflame. — Jimmy Rushton (@JimmySecUK) June 1, 2025 18 years after @Jrdmnz @jason4short and I created ArduPilot, here it is destroying large parts of the Russian air force. Crazy — Chris Anderson (@chr1sa) June 1, 2025 Drone threats are only to expand and accelerate in terms of sophistication, thanks in large part to advances in artificial intelligence and machine learning, as time goes on. Uncrewed aerial systems with rapidly improving autonomous navigation and targeting capabilities that do not require a human in the loop present particularly serious threats. Without the need for an active link to a human operator, those drones are immune to jamming and do not pump out radio emissions that can help provide early warning to defenders. They are also not limited in range to keep a connection with their controllers. Improving capabilities to autonomously find and prosecute targets are already emerging on one-way-attack drones, and this is something that can be expected to proliferate, as well. Autonomous drones that can target objects dynamic targeting without having to rely just on a fixed set of coordinates via satellite navigation like GPS, another signal that can be disrupted, will only make drone threats more complex and vastly harder to counter overall. TWZ has explored all of this in great detail in this past feature. Swarming is another area that will make lower-end drones so much harder to defeat. Working cooperatively as an integrated team at computer speeds allows drones to operate and react with extreme efficiency beyond the pace of the enemy's decision cycle. This, along with sheer mass and the resilience that goes with that, can quickly overwhelm defenses. 'In general, the technology to field systems has far outpaced the technology to defeat those systems,' Rear Adm. Paul Spedero, Vice Director for Operations, J3, Joint Chiefs of Staff, told members of the House Oversight Committee at a hearing on drone threats in April. 'It's a much wider, broader, deeper market for drone application, for commercial and recreational purposes, so hence that technology has evolved very quickly from radio control drones to now fully autonomous drones that may or may not even rely on reception of a GPS signal, which would make it very challenging to intercept.' Ukraine's covert drone attacks on Russia also underscore that these are increasingly threats unbounded by basic geography. An adversary could launch uncrewed aerial attackers from 1,000 miles away or from an area right next to the target, or anywhere in between. There are many drone types that can address those missions needs, and affordably so. Those drones could be launched from the ground, from ships at sea, and/or from aerial platforms, including other lower-end drones. Complex attacks involving different tiers of threats approaching from multiple vectors at once only add to the complications for defending forces. Ukrainian "Dovbush" UAV carrying and releasing two FPV drones during "Dovbush" UAV is reportedly capable of carrying up to six FPV drones at the same — Status-6 (Military & Conflict News) (BlueSky too) (@Archer83Able) November 19, 2024 Despite all this, America's armed forces have also continued to lag in the fielding of counter-drone defenses for forces down-range, as well as bases and other assets in and around the homeland. Domestically, an often convoluted array of legal, regulatory, and other factors have presented challenges. On the sidelines of a U.S. military counter-drone experiment called Falcon Peak 2025 in October 2024, TWZ and other outlets were notably told that lasers, microwaves, surface-to-air missiles, and guns were all off the table as options for neutralizing drones within the United States, at least at the time. For over a decade I have outlined the exact scenario as we just saw in Russia. It could happen in the U.S. tomorrow. This was a pivotal event. U.S. military and political leadership cannot live in partial denial of this threat anymore. Our most prized aircraft are sitting ducks. — Tyler Rogoway (@Aviation_Intel) June 1, 2025 The biggest challenge with this issue is education. Many just don't take the time to learn the ins and outs of the UAS threat, there are many layers and nuances, emerging technologies. There are high up people in the military that don't even really understand these basics. Then… — Tyler Rogoway (@Aviation_Intel) June 1, 2025 The U.S. military does continue to push for enhancements to the authorities it has now to protect its bases and other assets domestically against drone threats. As part of a new Pentagon-wide counter-drone strategy rolled out last year, U.S. Northern Command (NORTHCOM) has a 'synchronizer role' that includes making sure commanders know what they are allowed to do now if drones appear around their facilities. Ukraine's drone attacks on Russian air bases this past weekend can only add to the already intense debate over investments in hardened aircraft shelters and other fortified infrastructure, as well as fuel calls for new counter-drone defenses, in general. The stark reality of what Ukrainian intelligence services have now demonstrated makes clear that uncrewed aerial threats, including to key assets deep inside a country's national territory, are well past the point of something that can be ignored. Contact the author: joe@
