Kyiv on alert as Russia launches missiles, drones assault on Ukraine
Kyiv was on high alert early Saturday after a Russian drone and missile attack on the Ukrainian capital, prompting urgent warnings from local officials and the military, the city's mayor, Vitaly Klitschko, said, after AFP journalists heard explosions.
"Explosions in the capital. Air defences have been activated. The city and the region are under a combined enemy attack," he wrote on Telegram. The Ukrainian Air Force warned that ballistic missiles were heading towards the capital.
Timur Tkachenko, head of the capital's military administration, said two fires had broken out in the city's Sviatoshinskyi district. Drone fragments had hit the ground there and in three other districts.
Officials said anti-aircraft units were in action.
Reuters witnesses reported waves of drones flying over the city, which had been jolted by a series of explosions.
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First Post
35 minutes ago
- First Post
‘India-Pakistan conflict was stopped with Trump's personal participation': Kremlin after Putin call
Trump on Wednesday (June 4) held a telephonic conversation with Russian leader Vladimir Putin during which the two leaders also discussed the India-Pakistan conflict, among other issues read more Kremlin appears to have endorsed US President Donald Trump's claim of helping reach a ceasefire between India and Pakistan following a four-day military conflict last month. Trump on Wednesday (June 4) held a telephonic conversation with Russian leader Vladimir Putin during which the two leaders also discussed the India-Pakistan conflict among other issues. In a press statement issued after the talks, the Kremlin acknowledged Trump's 'personal involvement' in helping halt the military standoff between the two South Asian neighbours. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD 'The Middle East was discussed, as well as the armed conflict between India and Pakistan, which has been halted with the personal involvement of President Trump,' said the statement. Trump's ceasefire claim The US president has on several occasions claimed he helped broker the truce between India and Pakistan on May 10. He made the latest claim during a press conference with Tesla CEO Elon Musk earlier this week, saying, 'We stopped India and Pakistan from fighting. I believe that could have turned out into a nuclear disaster, and I want to thank the leaders of India and Pakistan, and I want to thank my people. Also, we talk trade, and we say we can't trade with people who are shooting at each other and potentially using nuclear weapons. They're great leaders in those countries, and they understood and they agreed, and that all stopped.' Trump's comments come merely a week after he made the same claim during South African President Cyril Ramaphosa's visit to the White House, where he said he 'settled' the tensions between India and Pakistan through trade. India's rebuttal However, New Delhi has swiftly rejected the claims made by the Trump administration. India maintains that the request for ceasefire was initiated by the Pakistani side on May 10. Indian opposition lawmaker Shashi Tharoor, who is currently leading a delegation to Washington DC as part of the Operation Sindoor outreach programme, on Thursday dismissed Trump's claim. 'We have enormous respect for the American Presidency and the American President (Donald Trump). All we can say for ourselves is that we have never particularly wanted to ask anyone to mediate," Tharoor said. STORY CONTINUES BELOW THIS AD Tharoor further highlighted that India was anyway ready to cease its Operation Sindoor once Pakistan stopped its aggression and hence required no persuasion. 'The moment Pakistan stops, we are prepared to stop. So if they, in turn, then told the Pakistanis, you better stop because the Indians are willing to stop, and that was what they did, then that's a wonderful gesture on their part with Pakistan, but only Pakistan, and they can tell us exactly what happened. With us, all we can say is that we know, in our conversations, some of these things didn't come up,' Tharoor added.
Time of India
42 minutes ago
- Time of India
Ukraine's drone attack on Russian air bases is lesson for West on its vulnerabilities
Live Events (You can now subscribe to our (You can now subscribe to our Economic Times WhatsApp channel The targets were Russian warplanes, including strategic bombers and command-and-control aircraft, worth hundreds of millions of dollars. The weapons were Ukrainian drones, each costing under $1,000 and launched from wooden containers carried on trucks."Operation Spiderweb," which Ukraine said destroyed or damaged over 40 aircraft parked at air bases across Russia on Sunday, wasn't just a blow to the Kremlin's prestige. It was also a wake-up call for the West to bolster its air defence systems against such hybrid drone warfare, military experts took advantage of inexpensive drone technology that has advanced rapidly in the last decade and combined it with outside-the-box thinking to score a morale-boosting win in the 3-year-old war that lately has turned in Moscow's deeply the attack will impact Russian military operations is unclear. Although officials in Kyiv estimated it caused $7 billion in damage, the Russian Foreign Ministry disputed that, and there have been no independent assessments. Moscow still has more aircraft to launch its bombs and cruise missiles against the operation showed what "modern war really looks like and why it's so important to stay ahead with technology," said Ukrainian President Volodymyr the West is vulnerableFor Western governments, it's a warning that "the spectrum of threats they're going to have to take into consideration only gets broader," said Douglas Barrie, senior fellow for military aerospace at the International Institute of Strategic Studies in the past decade, European countries have accused Russia of carrying out a sabotage campaign against the West, with targets ranging from defense executives and logistics companies to businesses linked to drones have been seen in the past year flying near military bases in the US, the UK and Germany, as well as above weapons factories in weapons and other technology at those sites are "big, juicy targets for both state and non-state actors," said Caitlin Lee, a drone warfare expert at RAND in Washington."The time is now" to invest in anti-drone defences, she options to protect aircraft include using hardened shelters, dispersing the targets to different bases and camouflaging them or even building President Donald Trump last month announced a $175 billion "Golden Dome" programme using space-based weapons to protect the country from long-range mentioned were defences against drones, which Lee said can be challenging because they fly low and slow, and on radar can look like birds. They also can be launched inside national borders, unlike a supersonic missile fired from "dramatically increase" the capacity by a hostile state or group for significant sabotage, said Fabian Hinz, a missile expert and research fellow at IISS."How many targets are there in a country? How well can you defend every single one of them against a threat like that?" he resourceful, outside-the-box thinkingIn "Operation Spiderweb," Ukraine said it smuggled the first-person view, or FPV, drones into Russia, where they were placed in the wooden containers and eventually driven by truck close to the airfields in the Irkutsk region in Siberia, the Murmansk region in the Arctic, and the Amur region in the Far East, as well as to two bases in western Security Service, or SBU , said the drones had highly automated capabilities and were partly piloted by an operator and partly by using artificial intelligence, which flew them along a pre-planned route in the event the drones lost signal. Such AI technology almost certainly would have been unavailable to Ukraine five years video showed drones swooping over and under Russian aircraft, some of which were covered by tires. Experts suggested the tires could have been used to confuse an automatic targeting system by breaking up the plane's silhouette or to offer primitive protection."The way in which the Ukrainians brought this together is creative and obviously caught the Russians completely off guard," Barrie photos analysed by The Associated Press showed seven destroyed bombers on the tarmac at Irkutsk's Belaya Air Base, a major installation for Russia's long-range bomber force. At least three Tu-95 four-engine turboprop bombers and four Tu-22M twin-engine supersonic bombers appear to be the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion in 2022, the outgunned and outnumbered Ukrainian military has adopted a creative approach to warfare. Its forces deployed wooden decoys of expensive US HIMARS air defence systems to draw Russia's missile fire, created anti-drone units that operate on pickup trucks, and repurposed captured compared Sunday's attack to Israel's operation last year in which pagers used by members of the militant group Hezbollah exploded almost simultaneously in Lebanon and Syria. Israel also has used small, exploding drones to attack targets in Lebanon and US used Predator drones more than a decade ago to kill insurgents in Afghanistan from thousands of miles away. Developments in technology have made those capabilities available in smaller compared the state of drone warfare to that of the development of the tank, which made its debut in 1916 in World War I. Engineers sought to work out how to best integrate tanks into a working battlefield scenario - contemplating everything from a tiny vehicle to a giant one "with 18 turrets" before settling on the version used in World War drones, "we are in the phase of figuring that out, and things are changing so rapidly that what works today might not work tomorrow," he the attack affects Russian operations in UkraineThe Tu-95 bombers hit by Ukraine are "effectively irreplaceable" because they're no longer in production, said Hinz, the IISS expert. Ukraine said it also hit an A-50 early warning and control aircraft, similar to the West's AWACS planes, that coordinate aerial attacks. Russia has even fewer of these."Whichever way you cut the cake for Russia, this requires expense," said Thomas Withington of the Royal United Services Institute in London. "You can see the billions of dollars mounting up,"Russia must repair the damaged planes, better protect its remaining aircraft and improve its ability to disrupt such operations, he said. Experts also suggested the strikes could force Moscow to speed up its programme to replace the underscoring Russian vulnerabilities, it's not clear if it will mean reduced airstrikes on has focused on trying to overwhelm Ukraine's air defences with drones throughout the war, including the use of decoys without payloads. On some nights last month, Moscow launched over 300 drones."Even if Ukraine was able to damage a significant portion of the Russian bomber force, it's not entirely clear that the bomber force was playing a linchpin role in the war at this point," Lee air force data analysed by AP shows that from July 2024 through December 2024, Russia used Tu-22M3s and Tu-95s 14 times against Ukraine but used drones almost every operation might temporarily reduce Russia's ability to launch strategic missile attacks but it will probably find ways to compensate, Lee said.
News18
44 minutes ago
- News18
Are Strategic Bombers Still Relevant In The Age of Drones?
Last Updated: Strategic bombers have long been the aerial equivalent of aircraft carriers - power projection platforms meant not just to fight wars, but to prevent them In a dramatic escalation of its long-range warfare tactics, Ukraine recently launched a successful drone offensive targeting several key Russian airbases. Among the casualties were Russia's prized strategic assets, heavy, long-range bombers like the Tu-95. These aircraft, symbols of Russian military prestige and vital components of its nuclear deterrent, were reduced to wreckage by relatively inexpensive unmanned aerial vehicles. The incident has reignited debate: in an era dominated by cheap drones and precision-guided missiles, do strategic bombers, often described as 'flying fortresses", still matter? Strategic bombers have long been the aerial equivalent of aircraft carriers – power projection platforms meant not just to fight wars, but to prevent them. Their very presence in the skies sends a powerful message: this territory is under our control, and any challenge will be met with overwhelming force. Historically, these aircraft have served as the airborne arm of a nation's nuclear doctrine. On August 6, 1945, the world witnessed their devastating potential when the US Air Force's B-29 Enola Gay dropped the first atomic bomb on Hiroshima. The B-29 had a range of nearly 6,000 kilometres and could carry over 9 tonnes of payload, unprecedented at the time. Since then, bombers have formed one leg of the nuclear triad, alongside land-based ICBMs and submarine-launched ballistic missiles (SLBMs). Despite advances in missile technology, strategic bombers remain indispensable. Unlike ballistic missiles, which are often singular-use and carry nuclear payloads, bombers offer flexibility. They can launch, loiter, abort missions mid-flight, or strike with conventional precision-guided weapons. Their continued relevance is underpinned by their deterrent value, both conventional and nuclear. In the 21st century, warfare is no longer about trench lines and tank battles alone. Long-range precision strikes, satellite-guided munitions, electronic jamming, and cyber warfare now define military supremacy. Yet strategic bombers remain at the heart of long-range deterrence. Why? Because they can be stationed thousands of kilometres away from conflict zones, safely beyond the reach of most short-range missiles, yet remain capable of delivering strikes deep into enemy territory. Unlike fighter jets, which require proximity and airbase support, strategic bombers operate from distant, secure bases, often impervious to immediate retaliation. They are also uniquely suited for today's threat matrix. In a potential war, adversaries like China and Russia are expected to saturate US bases and aircraft carriers in the Indo-Pacific with cruise and ballistic missiles. This raises the vulnerability of tactical aircraft and ships. But strategic bombers, flying from distant continents, would likely remain untouched and ready to respond. Modern bombers are no longer just nuclear delivery systems. The US B-2 Spirit and the upcoming B-21 Raider, Russia's Tu-160 Blackjack, and China's under-development H-20 are stealth platforms designed for multi-domain warfare. Capable of carrying hypersonic missiles, electronic warfare pods, and long-range cruise missiles, these aircraft are force multipliers. Moreover, they offer the kind of psychological impact that missiles can't. As Italian airpower theorist Giulio Douhet once said, 'It is now possible to penetrate deep behind enemy lines without even breaking them." That ability, to hover as a threat, visible on radars or even satellite imagery, forces adversaries to rethink aggression. Strategic bombers also serve as a bridge between naval and air power. Equipped with anti-ship cruise missiles, they can track and destroy enemy warships far beyond the horizon, a role increasingly relevant as global powers pivot toward Indo-Pacific maritime confrontations. Who Holds the Keys to the Sky? Today, only three nations maintain active fleets of strategic bombers, each using them as a cornerstone of their defense doctrines: United States B-52 Stratofortress – 72 aircraft B-1B Lancer – 40 aircraft B-2 Spirit – 18 aircraft Russia China Xi'an H-6 – Approxiamtely 150 aircraft (modernised versions) India, though a rising military power, does not operate strategic bombers. Its 130 Jaguar aircraft serve as nuclear-capable fighter-bombers but lack the range and payload of true strategic bombers. Even as drone warfare evolves and hypersonic missiles begin to dominate headlines, strategic bombers are adapting, not fading. Their long loiter time, versatility in armaments, and role in multi-theater command structures make them indispensable. top videos View all Emerging platforms like the B-21 Raider promise a future where bombers are harder to detect, quicker to deploy, and even more precise in execution. In essence, they are evolving from Cold War relics to ultra-modern sentinels of the sky. The drone attacks on Russian airbases proved that no platform is invulnerable. But strategic bombers are far from obsolete. They are evolving faster than the threats around them. Get breaking news, in-depth analysis, and expert perspectives on everything from geopolitics to diplomacy and global trends. Stay informed with the latest world news only on News18. Download the News18 App to stay updated! First Published:
