Latest news with #Rivne
Al Jazeera
12 minutes ago
- Politics
- Al Jazeera
Russia hits Ukraine with record 479-drone strike ahead of POW swap
Russia has launched 479 drones against Ukraine in the biggest overnight drone bombardment of the three-year war, according to the Ukrainian air force. The air force said early on Monday that it had downed 460 drones as well as 19 missiles launched overnight. Russia's continued to step up its drone and missile attacks on Ukraine, despite declaring, under pressure from United States President Donald Trump, that it is interested in pursuing peace talks. The record launch came just ahead of the start of a prisoner swap agreed at recent talks between the pair. Of the hundreds of projectiles fired at numerous targets, only 10 reached their destination, Kyiv officials said. One person was reported injured. Russia's escalation of aerial attacks has been matched by a renewed battlefield push in the eastern and northeastern parts of the roughly 1,000km (621-mile) front line in occupied parts of Ukraine. The onslaught follows a secretive Ukrainian drone attack that damaged several Russian bombers parked at airbases deep inside the country in what was an embarrassment for the Kremlin and, according to Kyiv, a palpable hit on its ability to strike across the border with missiles. Russia's Ministry of Defence said one target of Kyiv's strike was the Dubno airbase in Ukraine's Rivne region, which hosts tactical aviation aircraft. The mayor of the western city of Rivne, Oleksandr Tretyak, said the overnight drone launch was 'the largest attack' on his region since the start of the war. Late on Sunday, Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy conceded that in some areas targeted by the Russian offensive, 'the situation is very difficult'. However, he provided no details. Ukraine is shorthanded on the front line against its bigger enemy and needs further military support from its Western partners, especially air defences. However, uncertainty about the US policy has led to doubts about how much help Kyiv can count on. Two recent rounds of direct peace talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Istanbul have yielded no breakthroughs beyond pledges to swap thousands of prisoners, including dead and seriously wounded soldiers. Since the agreement, believed to concern an exchange of around 1,200 prisoners by each, was struck last week, the pair has accused one another of failing to meet their obligations. However, the first batch of POWs was repatriated on Monday afternoon. 'Today's exchange has begun. It will be done in several stages in the coming days,' Zelenskyy said on the Telegram app. 'Among those we are bringing back now are the wounded, the severely wounded, and those under the age of 25,' he added. The Russian defence ministry also said the first exchange had been carried out. It did not say how many prisoners had been swapped, but did note that the numbers on each side matched. The Russian Defence Ministry said on Monday that its forces shot down 49 Ukrainian drones overnight over seven Russian regions. Two drones hit a plant specialising in electronic warfare equipment in the Chuvashia region, located more than 600km (373 miles) east of Moscow, officials reported. Since the beginning of the war in 2022, Russia has targeted both military and civilian areas of Ukraine with Shahed drones. The attacks have killed more than 12,000 Ukrainian civilians, according to the United Nations. However, Russia claims it attacks only military targets. Alexander Gusev, head of Russia's Voronezh region, said 25 drones had been shot down there overnight, damaging a gas pipeline and sparking a small fire. The general staff of the Ukrainian armed forces also claimed that its special operations troops struck two Russian jets stationed at the Savasleyka airfield in Russia's Novgorod region, located some 650km (404 miles) from the Ukrainian border. The statement did not say how the planes were struck.
New York Times
2 hours ago
- Politics
- New York Times
Ukraine Says Russia Launched Biggest Air Assault of the War
Russia launched 499 drones and missiles overnight, Ukraine said on Monday, the largest air assault of the war as Moscow intensifies attacks and peace talks stall. Russia has been stepping up attacks in recent months, an effort that appears to have escalated further after Ukraine mounted a large-scale, coordinated assault on Russian air bases on June 7. In the days since, Russia mounted one of the biggest aerial assaults of the war — which Moscow described as retaliation for the surprise Ukrainian strikes on its bombers. On Monday, the Ukrainian Air Force said that Russia had launched 479 drones and 20 missiles overnight — the largest number of drones recorded since the war began more than three years ago. Most were intercepted, but 10 strikes were recorded, according to the air force. One person was killed in the Rivne region of western Ukraine and a Russian strike damaged a private home in the Kyiv region, according to the local authorities. Officials in the Sumy region said that nine people had been injured over the past day. There were no other immediate reports of further damage or casualties. Amid the intensified bombardment, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine urged civilians to pay attention to air-raid warnings. 'Please take care of yourselves,' he said in his overnight address. 'Take care of yourselves and Ukraine.' As Russia has escalated aerial attacks, it also has been stepping up frontline attacks and has opened a new front in northern Ukraine. But Ukraine has continued to try to take the war to Russia, including with the attack on Russian air bases and with further drone strikes deep inside the country. The Russian Defense Ministry said on Monday that its air defenses had destroyed or jammed 49 Ukrainian drones overnight. Rosaviatsia, Russia's aviation regulator, reported that four airports in the center of the country had temporarily suspended operations overnight because of security concerns. Ivan Nechepurenko and Anastasia Kuznietsova contributed reporting.
Telegraph
3 hours ago
- Politics
- Telegraph
Nato scrambles jets after Russian strikes near Polish border
Poland scrambled fighter jets to secure its airspace on Monday morning after neighbouring western Ukraine was hit by major Russian strikes. 'Due to the intensive air attack by the Russian Federation on the territory of Ukraine, Polish and allied aircraft began to operate in Polish airspace in the morning,' Warsaw's Operational Command said in a statement on social media. Russia struck deep beyond the front lines overnight, hitting western Ukraine with dozens of drones and missiles, according to Oleksandr Tretyak, the Rivne mayor. Ukraine said Russia launched 479 drones and 20 missiles, which would be the war's biggest overnight bombardment. Russia has recently accelerated its campaign against Ukraine, dampening hopes of a ceasefire after a renewed diplomatic push to end the biggest conflict in Europe since the Second World War. Poland is one of Ukraine's closest allies, and serves as a crucial logistics hub for Western military aid to Kyiv. In March last year, Poland, a Nato member, reported a breach of its airspace by a Russian cruise missile, demanding an explanation from Moscow. A similar incident occurred in December 2023, when a Russian missile penetrated Polish airspace for several minutes before returning to Ukraine. Mark Rutte, the Nato secretary general, will on Monday call for a 'quantum leap' in defence capacities including a '400 per cent increase' in air and missile defence that 'protects' the alliance against Russia. 'We see in Ukraine how Russia delivers terror from above, so we will strengthen the shield that protects our skies,' he will say in a speech to the Chatham House think tank in London, according to comments released in a statement.
Al Arabiya
4 hours ago
- Politics
- Al Arabiya
Russia fired record 479 drones at Ukraine overnight: Kyiv
Russia fired a record 479 drones at Ukraine in an overnight aerial barrage, Kyiv's air force said on Monday, the latest massive attack as Moscow rejects calls for a ceasefire. The attack caused damage in several Ukrainian regions, though there were no reports of people killed or mass casualties. 'Enemy air strikes were recorded in 10 spots,' the Ukrainian air force said. The mayor of the western city of Rivne, Oleksandr Tretyak, called it 'the largest attack' on the region since the start of the war. Russia has escalated its attacks across Ukraine in recent weeks, which Kyiv says demonstrate that Moscow has no intention of halting its three-year-long invasion and is not serious about peace talks. The barrages have raised concerns about the capacity of Ukraine's stretched air defense systems. But the air force said that it shot down or intercepted 460 of the drones, as well as 19 out of 20 missiles fired by Russia overnight. Ukraine also said it had launched its own overnight strike on an electronics factory that makes parts for Russian drones, with local Russian officials saying the facility had to temporarily suspend production after the attack.
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- Yahoo
Explosions heard in Rivne after air-raid warning issued due to Russian MiG-31K take-off
An air-raid warning has been issued in all Ukrainian oblasts on the morning of 9 June due to the take-off of a Russian MiG-31K fighter jet, which is a carrier of the Kinzhal hypersonic missile. Later, explosions were reported in Rivne by Suspilne correspondents. Source: map of air-raid warnings; Ukraine's Air Force; Suspilne, a Ukrainian public broadcaster Quote: "Attention! Missile threat across the entire territory of Ukraine! MiG-31K has taken off!" Updated: Later, the Air Force reported that missiles were heading towards Rivne Oblast. Suspilne correspondents noted a few minutes later that explosions were heard in Rivne. Background: One person was injured in a Russian nighttime attack on Rivne Oblast. Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon!
