Kyiv hits Russian airbase after Moscow pounds Ukraine with hundreds of drones
Writing on Facebook, the General Staff said it hit a depot containing glide bombs, a training aircraft and 'possibly other aircraft'.
It was a rocky start to the day, with more than 500 Russian attack drones and missiles. Difficult, but a significant number were shot down. Interceptor drones demonstrated important performance today and we are scaling this up to the hilt.
Today marks an important decision in… pic.twitter.com/TFTTyVjxLK
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) July 4, 2025
Russian officials did not immediately comment on the attack.
Such attacks on Russian airbases aim to dent Russia's military capability and demonstrate Ukraine's capability to hit high-value targets in Russia.
Last month, Ukraine said it destroyed more than 40 Russian planes stationed at several airfields deep in Russia's territory in a surprise drone attack.
Russia fired 322 drones and decoys into Ukraine overnight into Saturday, Ukraine's air force said. Of these, 157 were shot down and 135 were lost, likely having been electronically jammed.
Metro stations are used as bomb shelters in Kyiv (AP)
According to the air force, Ukraine's western Khmelnytskyi region was the main target of the attack. Regional governor Serhii Tyurin said no damage, injuries or deaths had been reported.
Russia has been stepping up its long-range attacks on Ukraine. Waves of drones and missiles targeted Kyiv overnight into Friday in the largest aerial assault since Russia's invasion of Ukraine began, killing one person and wounding at least 26 others.
The fresh wave of attacks came after Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky said on Friday that he had a 'very important and productive' phone call with US President Donald Trump.
I had a very important and fruitful conversation with @POTUS. I congratulated President Trump and the entire American people on the US Independence Day.
We – in Ukraine – are grateful for all the support provided. It helps us protect lives, safeguard our freedom and… pic.twitter.com/kQ3Byipvd2
— Volodymyr Zelenskyy / Володимир Зеленський (@ZelenskyyUa) July 4, 2025
The two leaders discussed how Ukrainian air defences might be strengthened, possible joint weapons production between the US and Ukraine, and broader U.S-led efforts to end the war with Russia, according to a statement by Mr Zelenksy.
Asked on Friday night by reporters about the call, Mr Trump said: 'We had a very good call, I think.'
When asked about finding a way to end the fighting, the US leader said: 'I don't know. I can't tell you whether or not that's going to happen.'
Strikes have continued on Kyiv (AP)
The US has paused some shipments of military aid to Ukraine, including crucial air defence missiles.
Ukraine's main European backers are considering how they can help pick up the slack. Mr Zelensky says plans are afoot to build up Ukraine's domestic arms industry, but scaling up will take time.
Russia's defence ministry said it shot down 94 Ukrainian drones overnight into Saturday, along with 12 further drones on Saturday morning. No casualties were reported.
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New Statesman
an hour ago
- New Statesman
Don't tell Emmanuel Macron – but he's a normal politician now
This month Emmanuel Macron spoke to Vladimir Putin for the first time since September 2022. Even in the final days leading up to the Russian invasion of Ukraine, the French president had worked to keep a line of communication open with the Kremlin, and in a two-hour call on 1 July, this year, he again pressed Putin to seek the path of peace. For Macron believes that even if there is no common ground with his interlocutor, Paris should at least act as a bridge-builder and pivot of multilateral relations. It was in this same spirit that he responded to Donald Trump's abrupt desertion of the G7 summit in June, when the French president assured reporters that Trump had left to firm up a ceasefire between Iran and Israel. Yet, if Macron thereby suggested that he was au fait with the discussions, Trump slapped down even this face-saving exercise: the French president was 'publicity seeking' but 'always gets it wrong', the US president snarled on Truth Social. 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Well into the latter half of his second term, Macron's international standing also matters so much to him because he has shed influence at home. While Macron has long insisted that he will press on with domestic reforms 'till the last quarter-hour' of his term, which ends in 2027, he is now hobbled by his lack of support in the National Assembly. Re-elected president in April 2022 in a run-off against Marine Le Pen, before he lost his overall parliamentary majority eight weeks later, Macron's authority cratered in summer 2024 after he made an ill-judged call for snap elections. Ever since then, his weak minority governments have been on life support – or, more specifically, depended on the goodwill of their political opponents. On 1 July, his prime minister, François Bayrou, once again survived a confidence vote only because Le Pen's party, National Rally (RN), abstained. Macron's stagnant position is a far cry from his first run for election, when he cast himself as the dynamic alternative to both a 'blocked political system' and to Le Pen's nationalist camp. He had announced his first presidential bid at a crucial moment in November 2016, just two weeks after Trump's election. With the Brexit referendum fresh in people's memory, he staked his agenda on the 'openness' and 'reforms' that could make globalisation work. A technocrat by training, Macron nonetheless presented himself as an 'outsider' who would lead a 'democratic revolution' against the old parties. In his insurgent claim to transcend the left-right divide, Macron's early rhetoric hit familiar populist notes while also challenging the nationalists more commonly called populist. He spoke of refusing to bow to the status quo or to the inevitability of the rising far right. He spoke as if he could direct events: what aides called a 'Jupiter'-like stance. 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Speaking outside a United Nations conference in Nice in June, Macron seemed prickly about the idea that his snap elections call had deepened France's political crisis. 'It would be a little easy to blame the president for how the French voted,' he said. Macron had announced that vote in the name of winning a fresh mandate – only for the run-off results on 7 July 2024 to produce a splintered parliament in which no coalition was close to an overall majority. If this had 'not helped clarify things' as he hoped, Macron insisted, the resulting gridlock should also be blamed on 'the intransigence among political forces'. Indeed, he added, 'some of them had previously claimed that the president has too much power', but now themselves refused to take responsibility. He refused to rule out holding further snap elections before 2027, though it is unclear that such a move will do much for his own allies' fortunes. By most evidence, the French are gloomy about the future. An Ipsos poll late in 2024 found that 87 per cent believe the country is 'in decline' though only 34 per cent considered this 'irreversible'. More broadly, surveys show worsening faith in public services, political parties and democratic institutions. While indicators of public optimism improved upon Macron's initial election, they have since worsened, and his own ratings have slumped under 30 per cent. Scepticism is warranted about claims that he is uniquely divisive: his predecessor, François Hollande, had such poor ratings that he didn't even seek re-election, and the president before that, Nicolas Sarkozy, risks a jail sentence over charges of corruption. Still, Macron's arrogant posture, and his pushing through of unpopular reforms, have heightened the perception of a man detached from public opinion. The two most illustrative flashpoints of his tenure were the November 2018 fuel-tax hike, which sparked the gilets jaunes protests, and the 2023 rise in the retirement age. In both cases, Macron's allies could cite deeper justifications: France does need to lower its dependence on fossil fuels, and the ageing population requires some kind of rebalancing of the pension bill. More questionable were the government's assumptions about whom the cost should fall upon, as well as the harsh repression of the resulting protests. Such measures especially contrasted with Macron's removal of taxes on the wealthiest households and on businesses in the name of economic stimulus. The fact that growth prospects have remained poor, and that public debt has continued to rise – especially due to pandemic-era spending – have ensured that what were called 'difficult choices' achieved little public buy-in. If Thatcherism won some new working-class support through home ownership, even as it attacked trade unions, Macronism can boast of no similar trade-off. For Thomas Piketty and Julia Cagé, it has 'the most bourgeois electorate in history.' 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Returning to those remarks at the Sorbonne last year, Macron hailed the EU's successes in the pandemic response, breaking its reliance on Russian fossil fuels, and developing common planning on everything from the green transition to military preparedness. Since the pandemic, European collective investment has more firmly established itself – albeit mainly because Germany has changed tack, including this year on defence spending. Brexit-style splits are no longer on the agenda. Yet the EU also emerges from the last decade looking weaker in important ways. On everything from electric vehicles to AI, the bloc lags behind the US and China, and in neither the Middle East nor Ukraine wars has it shown itself to be a real diplomatic superpower. What next for France? Macron is not allowed to enter the 2027 presidential contest, and currently Le Pen is also legally barred from running (as a result, Bardella surely will stand). A host of former Macron allies, from the more liberal Gabriel Attal to the Gaullist Édouard Philippe, are touted as candidates, as is hardline ex-interior minister Gérald Darmanin and incumbent Bruno Retailleau, who was recently elected the Republicans' leader. If a host of parties and individuals have at one point been part of the president's camp – known as Macronie – there seems to be little chance of a joint candidate in 2027, at least in the first round. Many of the former allies now have poor relations with Macron, and the political cohesion of this camp, once he is no longer president, is uncertain. He may fancy himself as a De Gaulle figure, called upon to fix the nation's – and the world's – messes. And perhaps he will be summoned to run once again in 2032 after some other president has brought havoc. Yet Emmanuel Macron's record in office, low poll ratings, and the flop of his remaining presidency, make an unconvincing case for him to be the man of providence. 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Glasgow Times
6 hours ago
- Glasgow Times
Trump announces 25% tariffs on Japan and South Korea
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North Wales Chronicle
6 hours ago
- North Wales Chronicle
Macron to arrive in UK with Starmer set to press for help on small boats
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