Ukraine-Russia war live: Kyiv ‘hits airfield and oil depots’ in drone attack as US to send missile Patriots

Russia said its air defense systems had intercepted more than 60 Ukrainian drones over the southern Krasnodar region, which lies to the east of annexed Crimea.

While Ukrainian officials typically decline to comment on attacks on Russian soil, the Ukrainian energy ministry said that two oil refineries in the Krasnodar region had been hit by drones.

A Russian court has ordered a journalist for the Russian edition of Forbes to be placed under house arrest, Russia’s state-owned RIA news agency reported on Saturday.

Sergei Mingazov was detained on Friday on suspicion of spreading false information about the Russian army, his magazine said at the time.

Such allegations have been used to fuel a clampdown on reports which challenges the Kremlin narrative of Vladimir Putin’s war, initially terminated a “special military operation”, since Russian authorities introduced harsh new laws shortly after the full-scale invasion of Ukraine.

Russia has launched a barrage of missiles at Ukrainian power facilities, hitting locations in the center and west of the country, damaging equipment and injuring at least one energy worker, officials said.

Ukrainian energy minister German Galushchenko said the Russian strikes targeted the Dnipropetrovsk region in central Ukraine and the western regions of Lviv and Ivano-Frankivsk.

DTEK, Ukraine’s largest private energy company, said its four thermal power stations were hit and Mr Galushchenko said that one energy worker had been injured.

“The enemy again massively shelled the Ukrainian energy facilities,” DTEK said. “The company’s equipment was seriously damaged. “At this very moment, energy workers are trying to eliminate the consequences of the attack.”

The commander of the Ukrainian air force said Russia had launched combined overnight strikes using a total of 34 cruise and ballistic missiles of which Ukrainian air defense shot down 21.

Since 22 March, Russian forces have ramped up their bombardments of the Ukrainian power sector, attacking thermal and hydropower stations and other energy infrastructure almost daily. Ukraine has lost about 80 per cent of its thermal generation and about 35 per cent of its hydropower capacity, officials said.

He also defended what he called “entirely reasonable” calls from US counterparts for greater European defense spending.

Ukraine’s air defense shot down 21 of 34 Russian missiles fired in an overnight attack, the commander of the Ukrainian air force said today.

Mykola Oleschuk said Ukrainian fighter plans, air defense missile units, mobile fire groups and means of radio-electronic warfare were involved in repelling the Russian missile strikes.

The new $61bn (£49bn) US aid package for Ukraine approved by Congress will undoubtedly improve the country’s battlefield position. Stocks of ammunition from US bases in Poland and Germany can now be shipped quickly to existing Ukrainian forces and allow newly mobilized troops to be equipped.

Critics of Ukraine’s mobilization law, recently passed by the parliament in Kyiv, argued it made little sense to draft more men if there were no weapons to arm them: now that concern can be addressed.

The US package includes weapons Ukraine has long sought after and which can make a significant difference in the war, like long-range ATACMS missiles. These will improve Volodymyr Zelensky’s capability to threaten and destroy Russian military targets in occupied Crimea, forcing Russia to withdraw its equipment, enhancing Black Sea security.

The US vote also provides an important boost to morale, restoring hope that Western partners are delivering on their promises and sending a powerful signal to Russia.

Even amid war, Ukraine finds time for the glittery, pop-filled Eurovision Song Contest. Perhaps now even more than ever.

Ukraine’s entrants in the pan-continental music competition — the female duo of rapper Alyona Alyona and singer Jerry Heil — set off from Kyiv for the competition on Thursday. In wartime, that means a long train journey to Poland, from where they will travel on to next month’s competition in Malmö, Sweden.

“We need to be visible to the world,” Ms Heil said at Kyiv train station before her departure. “We need to show that even now, during the war, our culture is developing, and that Ukrainian music is something waiting for the world” to discover.

Drone patents have spread across the world amid a “new arms race” as the technology is increasingly applied on the battlefield, experts have warned.

Data from the World Intellectual Property Office (WIPO) showed that patents filed for technology relating to drones emerged by 16 per cent between 2022 and 2023. This represented an increase from 16,800 in 2022 to 19,700 in 2023 – with China, Russia and the US among the top five countries developing the technology.

Marcel Plichta, a former analyst at the US Department of Defense, told The Independent that the scramble for patents marks a new global arms race for a new kind of warfare.

He said: “This is part of a new global arms race. It’s different to a more traditional arms race of tanks and rifles, and is spurred on much more by the tech sector – especially in Ukraine and Russia, where this sort of technology is being developed to get around attrition warfare, where it is difficult to make any real sort of progress.

A Ukrainian court ordered the detention of the country’s farm minister in the latest high-profile corruption investigation, while Kyiv security officials assessed how they can recover lost battlefield momentum in the war against Russia.

Ukraine’s High Anti-Corruption Court ruled that agriculture minister Oleksandr Solskyi should be held in custody for 60 days, but he was released after paying bail of 75 million hryvnias ($1.77m), a statement said.

Ukraine’s National Anti-Corruption Bureau suspects Solskyi headed an organized crime group that between 2017 and 2021 illegally obtained land worth 291 million hryvnias ($6.85m) and attempted to obtain other land worth 190 million hryvnias ($4.47m).