Suspect in killing of general claims he was paid by Ukraine
MOSCOW — A man arrested on suspiction of killing a Russian general with a car bomb has pleased guilty to terrorism charges and said he was paid by the Ukrainian Security Service, Russian authorities said on Sunday.
Lt. Gen. Yaroslav Moskalik, deputy head of the main operational department in the General Staff of the Russian armed forces, was killed along with his assistant on Friday by a bomb in his car in Balashikha, outside the capital Moscow.
Ukrainian authorities have not commented on the attack, which was the second in four months targetting high-ranked Russian military offices that was blamed on Ukraine amid the conflict between the two countries.
Lt. Gen. Igor Kirillov died on 17 December 2024 when a bomb hidden on an electric scooter outside his apartment building exploded as he walked past on the way to his office. Ukraine's security agency did acknowledge it was behind that attack.
Kirillov was the head of Russia's Radiation, Biological and Chemical Protection Forces, a special group of soldiers responsible for protecting the military from enemy use of nuclear, chemical or biological weapons while ensuring operations in a contaminated environment.
He was under sanction from a number of countries, including the UK and Canada, due to his actions in the war against Ukraine. — Euronews
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Saudi Gazette
3 hours ago
- Saudi Gazette
Ukraine targets several Russian air bases in large-scale operation ‘Spiderweb'
KYIV — Ukraine has carried out large-scale drone strikes against several air bases deep inside Russia, destroying multiple combat planes, according to the Ukrainian Security Service (SBU). The operation, dubbed 'Spiderweb,' comes on the eve of expected peace talks in Istanbul between Russia and Ukraine, and involved the most ambitious simultaneous strikes on Russian air bases carried out by Ukraine since the war began. An SBU source said that Russian bombers were 'burning en masse' at four air bases hundreds of miles apart, adding that drones had been launched from trucks inside Russia. Ukraine planned the operation for more than a year and a half and used 117 drones to carry out the attacks, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said in an address on Sunday night. 'The planning, organization, and all the details were perfectly prepared. It can be confidently said that this was an absolutely unique operation,' Zelensky said. The Trump administration was not given a heads-up about the operation, an administration official told CNN. A senior US defense official told CNN that Ukraine's attack showed a level of sophistication that they had not seen before. US Defense Secretary Pete Hegseth received regular updates as he traveled to Joint Base Andrews on Sunday but has not yet spoken to his Ukrainian counterparts, the official said. The Department of Defense is continuing to assess the extent of the damage from the attacks and determine the details of the operation, the official added. More than 40 aircraft were known to have been hit, according to the SBU source, including TU-95 and Tu-22M3 strategic bombers and one of Russia's few remaining A-50 surveillance planes. According to the SBU, the operation caused an estimated $7 billion in damages and hit 34% of Russia's strategic cruise missile carriers at its main air bases. 'We are doing everything to drive the enemy from our native land! We will strike them at sea, in the air, and on land. And if needed — we'll reach them even from underground,' the SBU said in a statement. The airfields targeted included Belaya in Irkutsk, some 4,500 kilometers (2,800 miles) from Ukraine's border with Russia, and the Dyagilevo base in Ryazan in western Russia, about 520 kilometers (320 miles) from Ukraine, which is a training center for Russia's strategic bomber force. The Olenya base near Murmansk in the Arctic Circle, more than 2,000 kilometers (1,200 miles) from Ukraine, was also struck, according to the source, as well as the Ivanovo air base, more than 800 kilometers (500 miles) from Ukraine. Ivanovo is a base for Russian military transport aircraft. The Russian Ministry of Defense confirmed Ukraine had targeted Russian airfields across five regions on Sunday, calling the drone strikes 'terrorist attacks.' The ministry said strikes were repelled in the Ivanovo, Ryazan and Amur regions but that 'several pieces of aircraft' caught fire after attacks in the Murmansk and Irkutsk regions. It added that the fires had since been extinguished. There were no casualties as a result of the attacks, the ministry continued, adding that 'some participants in the terrorist attacks have been detained.' The governor of Irkutsk region, Igor Kobziev, said that drones had been launched from a truck near the Belaya base. Kobziev said on Telegram that the exact number of drones deployed had not been determined. Emergency and security services were at the site, he added. SBU drones were targeting aircraft that bomb Ukrainian cities every night, the SBU source said. One video supplied by the source purportedly shows the Belaya airfield in flames and the voice of the head of the SBU, Lt. Gen. Vasyl Malyuk, commenting on the situation. 'How beautiful Belaya airfield looks now. Enemy's strategic aircraft,' he says. CNN was able to confirm the location of that video, as well as two others posted on social media showing smoke rising from the Belaya air base. It was not immediately able to independently verify other videos provided by the SBU. The SBU source said that the operation was 'extremely complicated from a logistical point of view,' with the drones carried inside wooden mobile homes that had been carried into Russia on trucks. 'The drones were hidden under the roofs of the houses, which were already placed on trucks. At the right moment, the roofs were remotely opened, and the drones flew to hit Russian bombers.' One video purportedly of one attack appears to show drones rising from a truck, as vehicles pass on a nearby highway. Another image shows the roof of the truck on the ground. The source added that people involved were already back in Ukraine. Ukraine's operation followed a Russian attack overnight Saturday that involved 472 drones – Moscow's largest drone attack since the war began. It came the same day as a Russian missile strike on a training site used by Ukrainian forces, killing at least 12 people and wounding more than 60 others. It also came soon after two bridges collapsed in Russia's western regions bordering Ukraine in unclear circumstances. This chain of events comes as Russia and Ukraine are set to return to peace negotiations on Monday. The talks, which will take place in Istanbul, have been strained by uncertainty. US President Donald Trump has expressed frustration around Russian President Vladimir Putin's resistance to advancing the peace talks. Putin proposed holding 'direct talks' in Turkey earlier this month – but never showed up, despite Zelensky agreeing to meet. In the end, the two nations sent low-level delegations to negotiate instead. A framework from the Ukrainian delegation lists key principles for the talks that include a full and unconditional ceasefire, an exchange of prisoners, and the release of hostages and return of abducted children. — CNN
Saudi Gazette
20 hours ago
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At least 7 killed, 67 injured in twin bridge collapses in Russia's Bryansk and Kursk regions
MOSCOW — At least seven people were killed and 67 others injured after two road bridges collapsed in Russia's border regions of Bryansk and Kursk, local authorities confirmed on Sunday. Bryansk Governor Alexander Bogomaz said the first incident occurred late Saturday when a bridge collapsed onto railway tracks in the Vygonichsky district. "According to operational data... unfortunately, seven people died," Bogomaz said on Telegram, adding that 66 people were injured—47 of whom are hospitalized. Three of the injured are children, including one in critical condition. Russian Railways (RZD), the country's state-run rail operator, said nearly 200 railway workers, three restoration trains, and other emergency crews are on site to clear the wreckage and restore operations. Initial statements by RZD's Moscow Railways branch referred to the incident as a result of 'illegal interference in transport operations,' though the post was later edited to remove that language. A second collapse occurred in the Zheleznogorsky district of neighboring Kursk region as a freight train was passing. Acting Governor Alexander Khinshtein confirmed the incident and reported that one of the train drivers was Investigative Committee later announced that both incidents were caused by explosions, though further details were not Svetlana Petrenko said investigators are working to determine the source and nature of the Bryansk and Kursk regions border Ukraine and have witnessed frequent drone strikes and sabotage attempts since the start of the war in no group has claimed responsibility for the bridge collapses, Russian officials have previously accused Ukrainian operatives of targeting infrastructure near the said full investigations are underway, and emergency services continue operations at both sites. — Agencies
Saudi Gazette
4 days ago
- Saudi Gazette
The terrifying new weapon changing the war in Ukraine
Yogita Limaye RODYNSKE — An acrid smell hangs over the town of Rodynske. A couple of minutes after we drive into the city we see where it's coming from. A 250kg glide bomb has ripped through the town's main administrative building, and taken down three residential blocks. We're visiting a day after the bomb struck, but parts of the wreckage are still smoking. From the edges of the town we hear the sound of artillery fire, and of gunshots – Ukrainian soldiers shooting down drones. Rodynske is about 15km (9 miles) north of the embattled city of Pokrovsk. Russia has been trying to capture it from the south since the autumn of last year, but Ukrainian forces have so far managed to stop Russian soldiers from marching in. So Russia has changed tactics, moving instead to encircle the city, cutting off supply routes. In the past two weeks, as hectic diplomatic efforts to bring about a ceasefire in Ukraine have failed, Russia has intensified its push, making its most significant advances since January. We find proof of that in Rodynske. Within minutes of us arriving in town, we hear a Russian drone above us. Our team runs to the closest cover available – a tree. We press up against it so the drone won't see us. Then there's the sound of a loud explosion – it's a second drone making impact nearby. The drone above us is still hovering. For a few more minutes, we hear the terrifying whirring sound of what's become the deadliest weapon of this war. When we can't hear it any more we take the chance to run to hard cover in an abandoned building 100ft away. From the shelter, we hear the drone again. It's possible it returned after seeing our movement. That Rodynske is being swarmed by Russian drones is evidence that the attacks are coming from positions much closer than known Russian positions to the south of Pokrovsk. They were most likely coming from newly captured territory on a key road running from the east of Pokrovsk to Kostyantynivka. After half an hour of waiting in the shelter, when we can't hear the drone anymore, we move quickly to our car parked under tree cover, and speed out of Rodynske. By the side of the highway we see smoke billowing and something burning – it's most likely a downed drone. We drive to Bilytske, further away from the frontline. We see a row of houses destroyed by a missile strike overnight. One of them was Svitlana's home. "It's getting worse and worse. Earlier, we could hear distant explosions, they were far away. But now our town is getting targeted – we're experiencing it ourselves," says the 61-year-old, as she picks up a few belongings from the wreckage of her home. Luckily Svitlana wasn't at home when the attack occurred. "Go into the center of the town, you'll see so much that is destroyed there. And the bakery and zoo have been destroyed too," she says. At a safehouse just out of reach of drones, we meet soldiers of the artillery unit of the 5th Assault Brigade. "You can feel the intensity of Russian assaults increasing. Rockets, mortars, drones, they're using everything they have to cut off supply routes going into the city," says Serhii. His unit has been waiting for three days to deploy to their positions, waiting for cloud cover or high-speed winds to give them protection from drones. In an ever-evolving conflict, soldiers have had to rapidly adapt to new threats posed by changing technology. And the latest threat comes from fiber-optic drones. A spool of tens of kilometers of cable is fitted to the bottom of a drone and the physical fiber optic cord is attached to the controller held by the pilot. "The video and control signal is transmitted to and from the drone through the cable, not through radio frequencies. This means it can't be jammed by electronic interceptors," says a soldier with the call sign Moderator, a drone engineer with the 68th Jaeger Brigade. When drones began to be used in this war in a big way, both militaries fitted their vehicles with electronic warfare systems, which could neutralise drones. That protection has evaporated with the arrival of fibre optic drones, and in the deployment of these devices, Russia currently has the edge. Ukraine is trying to ramp up production. "Russia started using fibre optic drones much before us, while we were still testing them. These drones can be used in places where we have to go lower than usual drones. We can even enter houses and look for targets inside," says Venia, a drone pilot with the 68th Jaeger Brigade. "We've started joking that maybe we should carry scissors to cut the cord," says Serhii, the artilleryman. Fibre optic drones do have drawbacks – they are slower and the cable could get entangled in trees. But at the moment, their widespread use by Russia means that transporting soldiers to and from their positions can often be deadlier than the battlefield itself. "When you enter a position, you don't know whether you've been spotted or not. And if you have been spotted, then you may already be living the last hours of your life," says Oles, Chief Sergeant of the reconnaissance unit of the 5th Assault Brigade. This threat means that soldiers are spending longer and longer in their positions. Oles and his men are in the infantry, serving in the trenches right at the very front of Ukraine's defense. It's rare for journalists these days to speak to infantrymen, as it's become too risky to go to these trenches. We meet Oles and Maksym in a rural home converted into a makeshift base, where the soldiers come to rest when they're not on deployment. "The longest I spent at the position was 31 days, but I do know guys who have spent 90 and even 120 days there. Back before the drones arrived, the rotations could have been between 3 or 7 days at the position," says Maksym. "War is blood, death, wet mud and a chill that spreads from head to toe. And this is how you spend every day. I remember one instance when we didn't sleep for three days, alert every minute. The Russians kept coming at us wave after wave. Even a minor lapse would have meant we were dead." Oles says Russia's infantry has changed its tactics. "Earlier they attacked in groups. Now they only send one or two people at times. They also use motorcycles and in a few instances, quad bikes. Sometimes they slip through." What this means is that the front lines in some parts are no longer conventional lines with the Ukrainians on one side and the Russians on the other, but more like pieces on a chessboard during play, where positions can be intertwined. This also makes it harder to see advances made by either side. Despite Russia's recent gains, it will not be quick or easy for it to take the whole of the Donetsk region, where Pokrovsk lies. Ukraine has pushed back hard, but it needs a steady supply of weapons and ammunition to sustain the fight. And as the war enters a fourth summer, Ukraine's manpower issues against a much bigger Russian army are also evident. Most of the soldiers we meet joined the military after the war began. They've had a few months of training, but have had to learn a lot on the job in the middle of a raging war. Maksym worked for a drinks company before he joined the military. I asked how his family copes with his job. "It's hard, it's really hard. My family really supports me. But I have a two-year-old son, and I don't get to see him much. I do video call him though, so everything is as fine as it could be under the circumstances," he trails off, eyes welling up with tears. Maksym is a soldier fighting for his country, but he's also just a father missing his two-year-old boy. — BBC
