Biggest drone attack on Kyiv since the start of the war – Ukrainian officials
Ukrainian officials are calling the raid on Kyiv the largest drone attack on the city since the start of the war.
Ukraine’s Air Force said it downed 52 out of the 54 Russia-launched drones, calling it a record attack with the Iranian-made ‘kamikaze’ drones. It was not immediately clear how many of the drones were shot over Kyiv.
Air Force said on Telegram that Russia had targeted military and critical infrastructure facilities in the central regions of Ukraine, and the Kyiv region in particular.
Serhiy Popko, the head of Kyiv’s military administration said earlier that preliminary information indicated the air raid is the largest drone attack since the start of Russia’s invasion in February 2022.
He added that Russia used the Iranian-made Shahed drones in the attack, he added. Reuters was not able to independently verify that information.
“Today, the enemy decided to ‘congratulate’ the people of Kyiv on Kyiv Day with the help of their deadly UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles),” Popko said on the Telegram messaging app.
“The attack was carried out in several waves, and the air alert lasted more than five hours.”
President Volodymyr Zelenskiy urged Iran earlier this week to reconsider the supply of deadly drones to Russia in order to stop their slide into “the dark side of history”. But Iran on Saturday said his comments were really designed to attract more arms and financial aid from the West.
Key events
Summary
Welcome back to our live coverage of Russia’s war on Ukraine. This is Christine Kearney and here’s an overview of the latest.
Russia carried out a major two-wave overnight air attack on Kyiv that killed at least one person, officials said, calling it the biggest drone attack on the capital yet since the start of the war, as Kyiv prepares to celebrate its birthday on Sunday.
The pre-dawn attacks came on the last Sunday of May when the capital celebrates Kyiv Day, the anniversary of its official founding 1,541 years ago. Ukraine says it shot down more than 40 drones.
More on that story soon. In other news:
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Preliminary operations have begun to pave the way for a counteroffensive against Russian occupying forces, a Ukrainian presidential adviser has said. “It’s a complicated process, which is not a matter of one day or a certain date or a certain hour,” Mykhailo Podolyak said in an interview with the Guardian. “It’s an ongoing process of deoccupation, and certain processes are already happening, like destroying supply lines or blowing up depots behind the lines.
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The commander of Ukraine’s armed forces, Gen Valerii Zaluzhnyi, raised expectations that a major operation could be imminent by declaring on social media: “The time has come to take back what’s ours.” Zaluzhny’s declaration on the Telegram messaging app on Saturday was accompanied by a cinematic video showing heavily armed Ukrainian soldiers preparing for battle.
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Ukraine’s defence ministry has claimed Russia is planning to simulate a major accident at the occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station to try to thwart Kyiv’s long-planned counteroffensive. The plant, in an area of Russian-occupied southern Ukraine, has been repeatedly hit by shelling that each side blames the other for.
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Russian forces have temporarily eased their attacks on the besieged eastern Ukrainian city of Bakhmut to regroup and strengthen their capabilities, a senior Kyiv official said on Saturday. Russia’s Wagner private army began handing over its positions to regular Russian troops this week after declaring full control of Bakhmut after the longest and bloodiest battle of the war, Reuters reported. In a statement on Telegram, the deputy defence minister, Hanna Maliar, said Russian forces have continued attacking but that “overall offensive activity has decreased”.
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Russian forces have intercepted two long-range Storm Shadow cruise missiles supplied to Ukraine by Britain, the RIA news agency cited the defence ministry as saying on Saturday. Reuters reports that the ministry said it had intercepted shorter-range US-built Himars-launched and Harm missiles, and shot down 13 drones in the last 24 hours, RIA reported.
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Defeat in its war against Ukraine would leave Russia “vindictive” and “brutal” and posing a threat to Nato countries, the outgoing head of the RAF said. Air Chief Marshal Sir Mike Wigston told The Telegraph that Russia’s air force, surface navy and submarine force are a threat to Britain and Nato. He warned its threat could even get worse if the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, was ousted.
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A construction worker has been killed near the Russian village of Plekhovo, a few kilometres from the border with Ukraine after shelling from the Ukrainian side, said Roman Starovoyt, the governor of the Kursk region. Works were being carried out not far from Plekhovo on fortifying defensive lines for the state border, the governor said on Telegram.
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Ukraine struck oil pipeline installations deep inside Russia on Saturday with a series of drone attacks including on a station serving the vast Druzhba oil pipeline that sends western Siberian crude to Europe, according to Russian media. Ukrainian drone attacks inside Russia have been growing in intensity in recent weeks, and the New York Times reported that US intelligence believes Ukraine was behind a drone attack on the Kremlin earlier this month.
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Ukraine has asked Germany to supply it with Taurus cruise missiles, an air-launched weapon with a range of 500 km (310 miles), a spokesperson for the defence ministry in Berlin said on Saturday. Germany received the request several days ago, the spokesperson said, confirming a report by Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung. She declined to provide further details or say how likely it was that Germany would supply the missiles to Ukraine.