A Russian hypersonic missile struck the area of Ukraine’s major Starokostiantyniv airbase on Monday morning, Kyiv said. The latest strike on Starokostiantyniv in the western Khmelnytskyi region came a day after the Dutch defence minister said the Netherlands would supply Ukraine with more F-16 jets in the coming months. There were no civilian casualties and no damage to critical infrastructure, said Serhiy Tyurin, governor of Khmelnytskyi.
Two Kinzhal missiles were shot down in the Kyiv region overnight into Monday, the air force said. Debris came down in three Kyiv districts, but no major damage or casualties were reported after air defences engaged incoming targets, city authorities said. Yurii Ihnat, a Ukrainian air force spokesperson, said: “Despite the fact that it’s getting harder, despite [Russia’s] improvements and the use of new tactics, today we have two shoot-downs … They are learning from their mistakes and from our mistakes. They are improving their technology so that we are able to shoot down fewer of them.” Ukrainian air defences also shot down 32 Russian drones and a further 37 were lost on military radars, suggesting they had been disabled by electronic warfare, the air force said.
Kyiv said Russian attacks had killed three civilians overnight into Monday: two brothers aged 35 and 38 in the eastern region of Sumy and a 61-year-old woman in the southern Kherson region. In the city of Kherson, the governor said a Russian strike had wounded 19 people and damaged an educational facility and various residential buildings. Ukraine also said a Russian attack had killed one person and wounded seven – including children aged two and 13 – in the city of Sloviansk in Donetsk oblast.
A Russian ballistic missile hit a Palauan-flagged civilian cargo ship in the port of Odesa on Monday, killing one person, said Oleg Kiper, the head of the Odesa region, in the second such attack in recent days. “A 60-year-old Ukrainian, an employee of a private cargo handling company, was killed. Five other foreign nationals were injured.” A Russian missile strike also damaged a civilian Saint Kitts and Nevis-flagged vessel loaded with corn in the Ukrainian port of Pivdennyi on Sunday, Ukraine’s restoration ministry said.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy said the war was in “a very important phase” as the Ukrainian army works hard to hold the bigger Russian forces at bay in the east while also holding ground in Russia’s Kursk border region, which it captured two months ago. Ukraine needs to “put pressure on Russia in the way that’s necessary for Russia to realise that the war will gain them nothing,” Ukraine’s president said. “We will continue to apply even greater pressure on Russia – because only through strength can we bring peace closer.”
Russia’s defence ministry claimed the capture of Grodivka, a settlement in the Donetsk region close to the strategically important city of Pokrovsk. There was no independent confirmation. Last week, Ukraine’s army said that it had withdrawn from the mining town of Vuhledar also in the Donetsk region, handing Russia one of its most significant territorial advances in weeks.
A Russian court has sentenced a 72-year-old American citizen, Stephen James Hubbard, to six years and 10 months in prison after convicting him in a closed-door trial of fighting as a mercenary for Ukraine. Investigators said Hubbard, a native of Michigan, served in a Ukrainian territorial defence unit in the eastern city of Izium, where he had been living since 2014. He was captured by Russian soldiers on 2 April 2022, and pleaded guilty, said the Ria news agency, quoting the Russian prosecutor.
Related News :