Latest news with #RussianMilitary
Yahoo
5 hours ago
- General
- Yahoo
Russia attacks Kharkiv with ballistic missiles, drones, injuring at least 6, including child
Editor's Note: This is a developing story and is being updated. Russia attacked the city of Kharkiv overnight with drones and ballistic missiles, injuring at least six people, including a child, local authorities reported in the early hours of June 2. Strikes on the city's Kholodnohirskyi district injured six people, including a 7-year-old boy, Kharkiv Mayor Ihor Terekhov reported. Two Russian ballistic missiles also struck the Kyivskyi district, Terekhov said. One reportedly hit a road in the area while the other hit an area close to high-rise buildings, shattering windows and damaging facades. Information about casualties and damage is still under investigation. Several homes, a civilian enterprise, and vehicles have been damaged in the attack, according to Terekhov. Earlier in the day, President Volodymyr Zelensky warned that Russia may be preparing for another mass strike against Ukraine in the wake of Kyiv's successful operation against Russian military aircraft. "Even before the start of this operation, we had intelligence about the preparation of another Russian massive strike," Zelensky said in his evening address. "And it is very important for all our people not to ignore aerial alerts. Last night, there were almost 500 Russian drones, strike drones. Every week they increased the number of units per strike. Now they have also prepared Kalibr cruise missles from sea carriers." Russia has launched repeated large-scale aerial assaults against Ukraine in recent days. The city of Kharkiv and the surrounding region came under heavy attack the previous night during a mass Russian drone strike. Russia launched nearly 500 drones at Ukraine, shattering its previous record for the number of drones fired in a single night. Kharkiv Oblast in northeastern Ukraine is a regular target of Russian missile, drone, and glide bomb attacks. Russia has frequently attacked densely populated neighborhoods in the city of Kharkiv, hitting residential buildings and civilian infrastructure. Read also: As Trump fails to sanction Moscow, few expect breakthrough during upcoming Russia-Ukraine talks We've been working hard to bring you independent, locally-sourced news from Ukraine. Consider supporting the Kyiv Independent.
New York Times
13 hours ago
- General
- New York Times
Monday Briefing: Ukraine bombarded Russian air bases
Before negotiations, Ukraine and Russia traded blows Ukraine mounted one of its broadest assaults of the war against air bases inside Russia yesterday, a coordinated drone operation that left aircraft smoldering in multiple regions, including as far away as Siberia. Kyiv also suffered a damaging blow when a Russian missile struck a Ukrainian military training base, killing at least 12 soldiers. Hours before that strike, Russia launched what Ukrainian officials said was the largest combined overnight aerial assault on the country since the start of the war. The fighting escalated even as delegations from Ukraine and Russia were expected to sit down for cease-fire negotiations today in Istanbul. Details: A Ukrainian security official said that Ukrainian officers had secretly transported drones on trucks into Russia and launched them from those vehicles. He said that dozens of aircraft had been damaged in the strikes. Quotable: A Russian military blogger described the attack as a 'black day for Russian long-range aviation.' Talks: During a previous round of talks in Istanbul, both sides agreed to share their peace terms. Since then, Ukrainian officials have accused Russia of stalling. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Khaleej Times
15 hours ago
- General
- Khaleej Times
Ukraine says hit $7bn worth of Russian military planes in drone attack
Ukraine's SBU security service said on Sunday that it had hit Russian military planes worth a combined $7 billion in a wave of drone strikes on Russian air bases thousands of kilometres behind the front lines. "$7 billion: This is the estimated cost of the enemy's strategic aviation, which was hit today as a result of the SBU's special operation," the agency said in a social media post.
The Independent
15 hours ago
- General
- The Independent
Dozens of Russian warplanes destroyed in Ukrainian drone attack, claims Kyiv
Dozens of Russian military aircraft have been destroyed in an unprecedented Ukrainian drone attack on military airfields deep inside Russia, Kyiv has said. The so-called 'Spider Web' operation, carried out by Ukraine's SBU security service, saw drones smuggled thousands of kilometres into Russian territory using lorries, before they were unleashed to destroy more than 40 warplanes, the SBU said. Russia confirmed that Ukraine attacked airfields across five regions, causing several aircraft to catch fire. 'The attacks occurred in the Murmansk, Irkutsk, Ivanovo, Ryazan, and Amur regions. Air defences repelled the assaults in all but two regions, Murmansk and Irkutsk,' Moscow's defence ministry said. Vladimir Putin will be 'infuriated' by the 'unprecedented' attack if it is as damaging as Kyiv claims, Russia expert John Lough told The Independent, describing it as a 'huge win' for Ukraine that will boost morale within the military. 'It's an embarrassment [for Russia]. It's just another humiliation at a moment where Putin is very keen to show the Americans in particular that Ukraine is losing, and [that] it's only a matter of time before the Russians roll them over,' said Mr Lough, head of foreign policy at the New Eurasian Strategies Centre. Around 18 months in the planning, Ukraine says the operation 'Spider Web' appears to have dealt a heavy blow to the aircraft used by Russian forces to launch long-range strikes on Ukrainian cities, including Tu-95 and Tu-22 strategic bombers. The attack came hours after Russian forces launched the biggest overnight air attack on Ukraine since its full-scale invasion three years ago, according to Kyiv's air force, which said 472 drones and seven missiles were fired. Volodymyr Zelensky also confirmed on Sunday that he would send a delegation for direct peace talks in Istanbul on Monday, despite Moscow's refusal to heed Kyiv's calls for it to provide a promised memorandum setting out its demands for a ceasefire before the talks. The talks will begin at 10am UK time (1pm local time), a Turkish source said. One of the Russian air bases struck by Ukraine in the Irkutsk region is more than 4,000 kilometres from the Ukrainian border, an SBU source told The Kyiv Independent. 'This is unprecedented. They haven't been able to hit this number of aircraft on this scale, going to those regions of the country,' Mr Lough said. 'To go out to east Siberia is absolutely phenomenal.' Emil Kastehelmi, a military analyst for the Black Bird Group, told The Independent that, if the scale of damage is verified, the attack is 'really, really significant'. Explosive-laden drones were hidden in the roofs of wooden sheds, which were then loaded onto trucks and driven to the perimeter of the air bases, according to a Ukrainian security official and images online. 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. The operation does not appear to have gone entirely to plan, Mr Kastehelmi said, explaining that it is 'very likely' that one or two of the trucks carrying the drones into Russia exploded before they could reach their targets. Meanwhile, seven people were killed and dozens injured after huge explosions caused two bridges to collapse and derailed two trains in western Russia overnight, officials said Sunday, without saying what had caused the blasts. The first bridge, in the Bryansk region on the border with Ukraine, collapsed on top of a passenger train on Saturday, causing casualties. The train's driver was among those killed, state-run Russian Railways said. Hours later, officials said a second train derailed when the bridge beneath it collapsed in the nearby Kursk region, which also borders Ukraine. Russia's Investigative Committee, the country's top criminal investigation agency, said explosions had caused the two bridges to collapse without giving more detail. Several hours later, it edited the statement to remove the words "explosions", but did not explain why.
News.com.au
16 hours ago
- Politics
- News.com.au
Ukraine wipes out Russian doomsday nuclear bombers in massive attack on air bases: Kyiv
Ukrainian forces have wiped out dozens of Russian military aircraft, including nuclear bombers, in a massive drone attack on President Vladimir Putin's air bases deep inside the country, Kyiv sources are claiming. The mission carried out by Ukraine's Security Service (SBU) using first-person-view (FPV) drones hit 41 Russian heavy bombers at four separate airfields thousands of miles from Ukraine, a security source told the Kyiv Independent on Sunday. The drones were reportedly smuggled into the country hidden in trucks, The NY Post reports. TU-95 'Bear' nuclear bombers, TU-22 'Backfire' fast-attack strike bombers and A-50 'Mainstay' command-and-control jets were among the aircraft that were destroyed in the strike, according to reports. The Tupolev TU-95, in particular, has been a mainstay of Russia's doomsday deterrent for 70 years, with swarms of the bombers ready to take off for the US in the event of nuclear war. One of the bases hit was in the Irkutsk region of Siberia, almost 2,500 miles from Ukraine. Others targeted were in Murmansk in the Arctic Circle, Ryazan southeast of Moscow, and Ivanovo, to the northeast of the Russian capital. The operation, codenamed ' Operation Spider's Web,' took some 18 months of planning and, if the details are confirmed, will deal a huge blow to Moscow's efforts to launch long-range missile attacks on Ukrainian cities. Video shows what appears to be a row of heavy bomber aircraft on fire at one of the air bases. Unconfirmed footage on social media shows FPV drones appearing to be launched from parked trucks next to the Russian airfields. 'The SBU first transported FPV drones to Russia, and later on the territory of the Russian Federation, the drones were hidden under the roofs of mobile wooden cabins, already placed on trucks,' the source claimed. 'At the right moment, the roofs of the cabins were opened remotely, and the drones flew to hit Russian bombers.' Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky personally oversaw the operation, the source told Kyiv Independent. Earlier, a post featuring an emoji of a spider web was posted on X by President Zelensky's chief of staff, Andriy Yermak. The Trump administration was not aware of the drone strikes before they happened, US and Ukrainian officials told Axios. It comes just a day before the leaders of Ukraine and Russia are being pressured to meet for the latest round of US-proposed peace talks in Istanbul, following last month's aborted summit. President Trump has urged Moscow and Kyiv to work together on a deal to end the three-year conflict. Ukraine has said it is committed to peace, but is waiting for a memorandum from the Russian side setting out its aims. "For a meeting to be meaningful, its agenda must be clear, and the negotiations must be properly prepared,' President Zelensky wrote on X on Friday. "Unfortunately, Russia is doing everything it can to ensure that the next potential meeting brings no results,' he added. President Zelensky set out his country's position on the talks in the wake of Sunday's attacks, demanding a complete and unconditional Russian ceasefire, prisoner release and the return of abducted children. Russia so far has rejected calls for an unconditional ceasefire and repeatedly made demands that Ukraine has rejected. The dramatic nature of the attack, which appeared to catch Russian authorities completely off guard, sparked warnings that US aircraft could be at similar risk of drone strikes. '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, a longtime military strategy observer, wrote on X. In separate attacks, the collapse of two bridges near the Ukrainian border killing at least seven people have been blamed by Russian investigators on sabotage. Meanwhile, Russia reportedly launched one of its largest single drone attacks since the start of the war, with 472 drones and seven ballistic and cruise missiles involved, according to Ukrainian authorities, who said they had neutralised 385 aerial targets.
