Russia launches the biggest aerial attack since the start of the war, Ukraine says
KYIV, Ukraine — Russia launched its biggest aerial attack against Ukraine overnight, a Ukrainian official said Sunday, part of an escalating bombing campaign that has further dashed hopes for a breakthrough in efforts to end the 3-year-old war.
Russia fired a total of 537 aerial weapons at Ukraine, including 477 drones and decoys and 60 missiles, Ukraine's air force said. Of these, 249 were shot down and 226 were lost, likely having been electronically jammed.
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Yahoo
28 minutes ago
- Yahoo
Russia launches the biggest aerial attack since the start of the war, Ukraine says
KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia launched its biggest aerial attack against Ukraine overnight, a Ukrainian official said Sunday, part of an escalating bombing campaign that has further dashed hopes for a breakthrough in efforts to end the 3-year-old war. Russia fired a total of 537 aerial weapons at Ukraine, including 477 drones and decoys and 60 missiles, Ukraine's air force said. Of these, 249 were shot down and 226 were lost, likely having been electronically jammed. The onslaught was 'the most massive airstrike' on the country since the beginning of Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, taking into account both drones and various types of missiles, Yuriy Ihnat, head of communications for Ukraine's air force, told The Associated Press. The attack targeted several regions, including western Ukraine, far from the front line. Poland and allied countries scrambled aircraft to ensure the safety of Polish airspace, the country's air force said. Three people were killed in each of the drone strikes in the Kherson, Kharkiv and the Dnipropetrovsk regions, according to the three governors. Another person was killed by an airstrike in Kostyantynivka, local officials said. In addition to aerial attacks, a man died when Russian troops shelled the city of Kherson, and the body of a 70-year-old woman was found under the rubble of a nine-story building hit by Russian shelling in the Zaporizhzhia region. In the far-western Lviv region, a large fire broke out at an industrial facility in the city of Drohobych following a drone attack that also cut electricity to parts of the city. Ukraine's air force said one of its F-16 warplanes supplied by its Western partners crashed after sustaining damage while shooting down air targets. The pilot died. Russia has recently been improving its drone technology as well as its tactics, striking Ukraine with increasing success. Russian troops reportedly advance in Donetsk Russia's Defense Ministry said it had shot down three Ukrainian drones overnight. Two people were wounded in another Ukrainian drone attack on the city of Bryansk in western Russia, regional Gov. Alexander Bogomaz said Sunday morning, adding that seven more Ukrainian drones had been shot down over the region. Meanwhile, Russia claimed Sunday that it had taken control of the village of Novoukrainka in the partially Russian-occupied Donetsk region. Russian forces have been slowly grinding forward at some points on the roughly 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line, though their incremental gains have been costly in terms of troop casualties and damaged armor. In other developments, Russia's foreign intelligence chief, Sergei Naryshkin, said he had spoken on the phone with his U.S. counterpart, CIA Director John Ratcliffe. 'I had a phone call with my American counterpart and we reserved for each other the possibility to call at any time and discuss issues of interest to us,' Naryshkin said in remarks to state TV reporter Pavel Zarubin, who posted them on his Telegram channel on Sunday. Sunday's attacks follow Russian President Vladimir Putin's comments two days ago that Moscow is ready for a fresh round of direct peace talks in Istanbul. Two recent rounds of talks between Russian and Ukrainian delegations in Istanbul were brief and yielded no progress on reaching a settlement. Zelenskyy withdraws Ukraine from an anti-land mine pact Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy signed a decree to withdraw Ukraine from the Ottawa Convention banning antipersonnel land mines, a Ukrainian lawmaker said Sunday. The move follows similar recent steps by the Baltic States and Poland. The 1997 treaty prohibits the use, production, stockpiling and transfer of antipersonnel land mines in an effort to protect civilians from explosives that can maim or kill long after fighting ends. 'This is a step that the reality of war has long demanded,' said Roman Kostenko, secretary of the Ukrainian parliamentary committee on national security, defense and intelligence. He noted that Russia is not a party to the convention "and is massively using mines against our military and civilians.' ___ Follow AP's coverage of the war in Ukraine at
Yahoo
3 hours ago
- Yahoo
UK PM condemns 'death to the IDF' chants at Glastonbury Festival
UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer on Sunday added his voice to those condemning a British punk-rap group for anti-Israel remarks at the Glastonbury music festival, an incident that has already sparked a police inquiry. Bob Vylan led crowds in chants of "Death, death to the IDF", a reference to the acronym for the Israeli military, during their set on Saturday. British police officers are also examining comments by the Irish rap trio Kneecap, whose members have also been highly critical of Israel and its military campaign against the Palestinian militant group Hamas in the Gaza Strip. Prime Minister Keir Starmer told The Telegraph Sunday that "there is no excuse for this kind of appalling hate speech." "I said that Kneecap should not be given a platform and that goes for any other performers making threats or inciting violence," he added. "The BBC needs to explain how these scenes came to be broadcast," he said, referring to the country's national broadcaster. One of Kneecap's members wore a T-shirt dedicated to the Palestine Action Group, which is about to be banned under UK terror laws. The festival's organisers said Bob Vylan's comments had "very much crossed a line". "We are urgently reminding everyone involved in the production of the festival that there is no place at Glastonbury for antisemitism, hate speech or incitement to violence," the festival said in a statement. Avon and Somerset police said Saturday that video evidence would be assessed by officers "to determine whether any offences may have been committed that would require a criminal investigation". - 'Life is sacred' - The chants about Israel's military were led by Bob Vylan's frontman Bobby Vylan, and were broadcast live on the BBC, which airs coverage of Britain's most popular music festival. "I thought it's appalling," Wes Streeting, the Labour's government's health secretary, said of the chants, adding that "all life is sacred". "I think the BBC and Glastonbury have got questions to answer about how we saw such a spectacle on our screens," he told Sky News. The Israel embassy said in a statement late Saturday that "it was "deeply disturbed by the inflammatory and hateful rhetoric expressed on stage at the Glastonbury Festival". But Streeting also took aim at the embassy, telling it to "get your own house in order". "I think there's a serious point there by the Israeli embassy. I wish they'd take the violence of their own citizens towards Palestinians more seriously," he said, citing Israeli settler violence in the West Bank. A spokesperson for the BBC said Vylan's comments were "deeply offensive" and the broadcaster had "no plans" to make the performance available on its on-demand service. Festival-goer Joe McCabe, 31, told AFP that while he did not necessarily agree with Vylan's statement, "I certainly think the message of questioning what's going on there (in Gaza) is right." - 'A joke' - Kneecap, which has made headlines in recent months with its pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel stance, also led crowds in chanting abuse against UK Prime Minister Keir Starmer. Starmer and other politicians had said the band should not perform after its member Liam O'Hanna, known by his stage name Mo Chara, was charged with a terror offence. He appeared in court this month accused of having displayed a Hezbollah flag while saying "Up Hamas, Up Hezbollah" after a video resurfaced of a London concert last year. The Iran-backed Lebanese force Hezbollah and the Palestinian militant group Hamas are banned in the UK, and it is an offence to express support for them. O'Hanna has denied the charge and told the Guardian newspaper in an interview published Friday that "it was a joke -- we're playing characters". Kneecap regularly lead crowds in chants of "Free Palestine" during its concerts, and fans revere them for their anti-establishment stance and criticism of British imperialism. Their detractors however, call them extremists. The group apologised this year after a 2023 video emerged appearing to show one singer calling for the death of British Conservative lawmakers. Israel began its offensive against Hamas in the Palestinian territory of Gaza after the militants launched an attack that resulted in the deaths of 1,219 people, mostly civilians, according to an AFP tally based on Israeli official figures. Israel's retaliatory military campaign has killed at least 56,412 people in Gaza, also mostly civilians, according to Hamas-run territory's health ministry. The United Nations considers these figures to be reliable. bur-gv/jj
New York Times
5 hours ago
- New York Times
Russian Barrage of Drones and Missiles Hits Beyond Usual Ukraine Targets
Russia pounded Ukraine overnight with hundreds of drones and missiles, the Ukrainian authorities said on Sunday, in one of the war's largest assaults. Strikes on infrastructure were reported across the country, including in western Ukraine, which Russia hits less frequently. The attack was the latest in a series of escalating Russian air assaults, with Moscow repeatedly setting new marks for the number of weapons used. The Ukrainian Air Force said Russia had launched 537 drones and missiles overnight — the highest number recorded in a single night so far. The figure includes nonlethal decoy drones designed to confuse Ukrainian air defenses, which Russia has begun using on a mass scale only in the past year, making comparisons with attacks earlier in the war difficult. Still, the decoys have significant effects. Ukraine's military is forced to use its limited stockpiles of air defense missiles to counter Russia's large-scale assaults, which military experts and Ukrainian officials say are aimed at overwhelming Ukraine's air defense units on the ground. The air defense missiles are the only weapons capable of shooting down incoming missiles. Ukraine's air force said about 90 percent of the Russian drones were intercepted, were disabled by electronic jamming, or crashed without causing damage because they were decoys. But it added that only two-thirds of the missiles that Russia fired were shot down, including just one of seven ballistic missiles. These figures could not be independently verified. It was unclear whether any civilians were killed during the overnight attack. But the Ukrainian Air Force reported the death of a pilot who crashed in his American-designed F-16 jet as he was trying to repel the Russian assault. Ukraine uses fighter jets to shoot down incoming missiles, for lack of enough ground-based air defenses. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
