Ukraine-Russia battle newest: Kyiv says maternity ward focused by Moscow in ‘massive’ drone assault on Odesa
Ukraine’s military said they struck two Russian fighter jets stationed at an airfield nearly 400 miles from the border, just days after conducting Operation Spiderweb.
Kyiv did not say how the warplanes were hit in the fresh attack launched by special operations forces on the Savasleyka airfield and there was no immediate comment from Russia. However, Russian war bloggers claimed there was no damage to any warplanes.
The latest attack followed Ukraine’s destruction of Russian bombers in a long-planned drone attack on airbases late last month.
In continued retaliation for that attack, Russia launched a massive drone strike on Ukraine overnight, killing one person and damaging swathes of Kyiv and striking a maternity ward in the southern port of Odesa, regional officials said this morning.
In London, meanwhile, Nato chief Mark Rutte warned on Monday that Russia was producing more ammunition in three months than the whole of Nato did in a year and asked the bloc’s members to amp up their defence spending.
Flights halted in Moscow as Ukraine launches drone attacks
Russia has been forced to observe a temporary suspension of flights at all airports serving Moscow and the country’s second-largest city St Petersburg due to an overnight drone attack by Ukraine, Russian officials reported this morning.
Russian air defence units destroyed a total of 102 Ukrainian drones overnight, the Russian defence ministry said.
Nearly half of the drones were destroyed over the Bryansk region that borders Ukraine, the ministry said. At least three drones were downed over the Moscow region and two over the Leningrad region, of which St Petersburg is the regional capital.
Russian officials only report how many were downed, not the number Ukraine launched.Russia’s civil aviation authority Rosaviatsia temporarily halted flights at all four major airports serving Moscow and St Petersburg’s Pulkovo Airport as well as at airports in nine other cities to ensure safety, it said on Telegram.
Flights in Moscow and some other cities were restored by morning, but restrictions were still in place in St Petersburg at 0430 GMT.
Regional governors, who wrote about the attacks on Telegram, did not report any damage caused by the attacks.
Russia producing more ammunition in three months than Nato does in a year
Russia is producing more ammunition in three months than the whole of Nato produces in a whole year, Nato chief Mark Rutte has warned.
“Russia is reconstituting its forces with Chinese technology and producing more weapons faster than we thought,” said the Nato secretary-general.
“In terms of ammunition, Russia produces – in three months – what the whole of Nato produces in a year.”
“And its defence-industrial base is expected to roll out 1,500 tanks, 3,000 armoured vehicles and 200 Iskander missiles this year alone. Russia could be ready to use military force against Nato within five years. Five years.”
Analysis | Why Nato is calling for Cold War levels of defence spending
Our world affairs editor Sam Kiley writes:
Nato chief Mark Rutte has called for a 400 per cent boost to air and missile capabilities and his demand to raise defence spending across the alliance to 5 per cent has raised the voices of doom to a scream.
A return to Cold War levels of defence spending is not, however an hysterical plea from a lackey of the military-industrial complex.
It is a sad acknowledgement that the peace dividend that came with the collapse of the Soviet Union has been squandered by the West in a pointless war in Afghanistan and a criminal conflict in Iraq which expanded the lists of peoples with a good reason to hate democracy.
But there were plenty around already. Vladimir Putin is one of them, Xi Jinping is another – Donald Trump is rushing to their ranks. Autocracy is on the rise around the world while democracies have been consumed by complacency.
“Wishful thinking will not keep us safe,” said Rutte, who called for Nato to become a “stronger, fairer and more lethal alliance”.
Russia has plans to test Nato’s resolve, German intelligence chief warns
Russia is determined to test the resolve of the Nato alliance, including by extending its confrontation with the West beyond the borders of Ukraine, Germany’s foreign intelligence chief told the Table Media news organisation.
Bruno Kahl, head of the Federal Intelligence Service, said his agency had intelligence indicating that Russian officials believed the collective defence obligations enshrined in the Nato treaty no longer had practical force.
“We are quite certain, and we have intelligence showing it, that Ukraine is only a step on the journey westward,” Mr Kahl told Table Media in a podcast interview.
“That doesn’t mean we expect tank armies to roll westwards,” he added. “But we see that Nato’s collective defence promise is to be tested.”
Germany, already the second-largest provider of armaments and financial support for Ukraine in its war with Russia, has pledged to step up its support further under the new government of Friedrich Merz, promising to help Ukraine develop new missiles that could strike deep into Russian territory.
Without detailing the nature of his intelligence sources, Mr Kahl said Russian officials were envisaging confrontations that fell short of a full military engagement that would test whether the US would really live up to its mutual aid obligations under Article 5 of the North Atlantic Treaty.
“They don’t need to dispatch armies of tanks for that,” he said.
“It’s enough to send little green men to Estonia to protect supposedly oppressed Russian minorities.”
In photos: Ukrainians spend another sleepless night in shelter as Russian drones fill skies
One killed as Kyiv, maternity ward hit by Russian barrage of drones overnight
Russia launched a massive drone attack on Ukraine overnight, killing one person and damaging swathes of Kyiv and striking a maternity ward in the southern port of Odesa, regional officials said early this morning.
The strikes followed Russia’s biggest drone assault on Ukraine yesterday – part of stepped-up operations that Moscow said were retaliatory measures for Kyiv’s recent brazen attacks in Russia.
At least four people were hospitalised as a result of the hours-long attacks that hit seven of the city’s 10 districts, city officials said.
Air raid alerts in Kyiv and most Ukrainian regions lasted five hours until around 5am, according to military data.
“A difficult night for all of us,” Timur Tkachenko, head of Kyiv’s military district, said on Telegram. “Throughout the night, the enemy relentlessly terrorised Kyiv with attack drones. They targeted civilian infrastructure and peaceful residents of the city.”
The attack sparked fires in residential and non-residential neighbourhoods and open space areas, city officials said. Reuters’ witnesses heard and saw countless loud explosions shaking the city and lighting the night sky.
Photos and videos posted on Telegram channels showed heavy smoke rising in the darkness in different parts of Kyiv. The scale of the attack was not immediately known.
“You can’t break Ukrainians with terror,” Andriy Yermak, president Volodymyr Zelensky’s chief of staff, said in a Telegram post after the attacks.
UK had ‘better learn to speak Russian’ unless it ramps up defence spending, warns Nato chief
People in the UK had “better learn to speak Russian” if the UK does not ramp up defence spending, Nato chief Mark Rutte has suggested.
Speaking at Chatham House in London, Mr Rutte was asked if he believed chancellor Rachel Reeves should be raising taxes to meet Nato’s defence spending commitments.
He replied: “It’s not up to me to decide, of course, how countries pay the bill. I mean, what I know is that if we want to keep our societies safe.
But he added: “Look, if you do not do this, if you would not go to the 5 per cent, including the 3.5 per cent core defence spending, you could still have the National Health Service, or in other countries their health systems, the pension system, et cetera, but you had better learn to speak Russian.”
Mr Rutte would not reveal the deadline for when he hopes Nato allies will spend 5 per cent of GDP on defence.
Asked about a deadline, he told reporters: “I have a clear view on when we should achieve that. I keep that to myself, because we are having these consultations now with allies, and these discussions are ongoing, and we will in the end agree on a date when we have to be there.”
‘We are all on the eastern flank now,’ warns Nato chief
Nato chief Mark Rutte has warned that we are “all on the eastern flank now” as he outlined plans to “transform” the Western military alliance in the face of threats from Russia and China.
“I know we can count on the United Kingdom as we start the next chapter for Nato,” Mark Rutte said in comments at Chatham House in London.
The Nato secretary-general said: “Russia is reconstituting its forces with Chinese technology and producing more weapons faster than we thought. In terms of ammunition, Russia produces in three months what the whole of Nato produces in a year.”
Warning that Russia could be ready to use force against Nato within five years, Mr Rutte said: “We are all on the eastern flank now. “The new generation of Russian missiles travel at many times the speed of sound. The distance between European capitals is only a matter of minutes. There is no longer east or west. There is just Nato.”
‘Our people are home,’ Zelensky says as young POWs return from Russia
President Volodymyr Zelensky shared a celebratory post on X as he welcomed home prisoners of war that are wounded, severely wounded, and those under the age of 25 from Russian captivity.
He said: “Our people are home.Ukrainians are returning home from Russian captivity.
“Today, an exchange began, which will continue in several stages over the coming days.
“Among those we are bringing back now are the wounded, the severely wounded, and those under the age of 25. The process is quite complex, with many sensitive details, and negotiations continue virtually every day,” he said.
Analysis: As Putin ramps up his summer offensive in Ukraine, will he succeed?
Russia is stepping up its summer offensive both on the ground and in the air but support from Europe and sophisticated drone warfare could help Ukraine hold Moscow back.
“Not so, Dmitry Peskov pouted; the conflict is an “existential question” for Russia. “This is a question of our security and the future of ourselves and our children, the future of our country,” continued Putin’s spokesman, who has grown more accustomed to preening with pleasure at the relentless assaults on Ukraine from the White House this year.
“He is right. Victory for Russia was once defined as regime change in Kyiv. But it really need only be a messed up Ukraine, unstable, violent and impoverished.”
World affairs editor Sam Kiley takes a closer look.
Source: independent.co.uk
