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Zelensky says major drone attack on Russian airfields ‘will go in history books’
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Dozens of Russian military aircraft have been destroyed in an unprecedented drone attack deep inside Russia, a Ukrainian official has said, the day before critical peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv resume in Istanbul.
The attack came one day before delegations from Moscow and Kyiv sit down for direct peace talks in Istanbul on Monday.
Volodymyr Zelensky hailed the “absolutely brilliant” operation which he said destroyed one-third of Russia’s strategic cruise missile carriers stationed at air bases.
Codenamed ‘spider web’, drones were smuggled deep inside Russian territory inside trucks, before they were unleashed on multiple Russian airfields destroying more than 40 warplanes, Ukrainian security officials said.
Russia confirmed on Sunday that Ukraine had targeted military airfields across five regions on Sunday, causing several aircraft to catch fire – but claimed it had repelled most of the attacks.
Vladimir Putin will be “infuriated” by the “unprecedented” attack if it is as damaging as Kyiv claims, head of foreign policy at the New Eurasian Strategies Centre John Lough told The Independent, describing it as a “huge win” for Ukraine.
Ukraine destroyed at least 13 planes during an attack on Russian air bases, Ukraine’s national security and defence council official said.
Andriy Kovalenko, the head of Ukraine’s Centre for Countering Disinformation, said some other planes were also damaged in the attack, in a post on the Telegram messaging app.
Five people have been killed and six others injured in Russian attacks on Ukraine overnight, ahead of peace talks between Moscow and Kyiv in Istanbul later today.
Russian shelling and air attacks killed five people outside the south-eastUkrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, while a drone attack on the northeast region of Sumy injured at least six early on Monday, including two children, regional officials said.
Ivan Fedorov, writing on the Telegram messaging app, said three women died in a series of Russian shelling incidents targeting the village of Ternuvate, east of Zaporizhzhia late on Sunday. A shop and several homes were badly damaged.
A man died in a nearby district in a Russian strike by a guided aerial bomb, Fedorov said. A total of nine people were injured in the Russian attacks and a private home was destroyed.
Two children were among those injured in a Russian drone attack on the Sumy region, Oleh Sinehubov, the governor of the region, said on Monday on Telegram.
“A 7-year-old boy is among the victims,” Sinehubov said. He added that several buildings throughout the regions were damaged.
Volodymyr Zelensky said Ukraine will continue to propose a “full and unconditional ceasefire” in today’s meeting with Russia.
The Ukrainian president said the plan Kyiv will present to Russia is “logical and realistic”.
“We continue to propose a full and unconditional ceasefire, along with all rational and dignified steps that could lead to a lasting and reliable peace,” he said on X late on Sunday night.
“The Russians, however, have not shared their ‘memorandum’ with anyone — we don’t have it, the Turkish side doesn’t have it, and the American side doesn’t have the Russian document either.
“Despite this, we will try to achieve at least some progress on the path toward peace.”
The Ukrainian delegation has arrived in Istanbul for the second round of direct peace talks since 2022.
The meeting is planned for this afternoon, Ukraine’s foreign ministry spokesperson said.
Ukraine’s delegation is being led by defence minister Rustem Umerov, while Russia’s delegation is being headed by Kremlin aide Vladimir Medinsky.
Germany’s chief of defence has warned that Nato must brace for an attack from Russia in four years or even sooner as Moscow builds up its forces “to an enormous extent”.
General Carsten Breuer said Russia was a “very serious threat” to Nato at the moment.
“It’s really coming to a point where I must say, we have to be prepared,” he said in an interview with the BBC.
General Breuer said Russia was building about 1,500 main battle tanks every year, as well as 4 million rounds of 155 millimetre ammunition, some of which was going in military stockpiles “facing the west”.
The general said it was “clear that there’s an intention” from Russia to expand its offensive elsewhere.
“So we have to be ready by 2029 up to then, we have to speed up in Nato,” he said.
“If you ask me now, is this a guarantee that’s not earlier than 2029 I would say, No, it’s not. So we must be able to fight tonight, and for this fight tonight … we are ready.”
Donald Trump was not given a heads-up about Ukraine’s unprecedented drone strikes that took out a huge fleet of Russian planes on Sunday, according to reports.
Ukraine’s “large-scale” drone attack, launched deep into Russian territory and which wiped out 40 bombers, took more than 18 months to plan and was personally supervised by Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky, both Ukrainian and U.S. officials told Axios.
Read the full report below:
A major Ukrainian drone attack has destroyed more than 40 Russian planes deep in Russia’s territory, Ukraine’s Security Service said yesterday.
The drones hit 41 planes stationed at military airfields on Sunday afternoon, including A-50, Tu-95 and Tu-22M aircraft, the official said.
Moscow has previously used Tupolev Tu-95 and Tu-22 long-range bombers to launch missiles at Ukraine, while A-50s are used to coordinate targets and detect air defences and guided missiles.
The Security Service of Ukraine said that the operation, which it codenamed “spider web”, had destroyed 34 percent of Russia’s fleet of air missile carriers with damages estimated at $7bn.
The claim could not be independently verified.
Russia’s defence ministry in a statement confirmed the attacks, which damaged aircraft and sparked fires on air bases in the Irkutsk region, more than 4,000km (2,500 miles) from Ukraine, as well as the Murmansk region in the north, it said.
Strikes were also repelled in the Amur region in Russia’s Far East and in the western regions of Ivanovo and Ryazan, the ministry said.
Asian shares sank this morning and oil prices jumped as trade tensions and the Russian-Ukraine conflict ratcheted up geopolitical uncertainty.
Hong Kong’s Hang Seng plunged more than 2 per cent as Beijing and Washington traded harsh words over trade. US president Donald Trump’s announcement that he will double tariffs on steel and aluminum to 50 per cent layered on still more worries for investors.
A report over the weekend that China’s factory activity contracted in May, although the decline slowed from April as the country reached a deal with the US to slash president Donald Trump’s sky-high tariffs, further undermined market sentiment.
Ukrainian negotiators in Istanbul will present to the Russian side a proposed roadmap for reaching a lasting peace settlement, according to a copy of the document seen by Reuters.
According to the document, there will be no restrictions on Ukraine’s military strength after a peace deal is struck, no international recognition of Russian sovereignty over parts of Ukraine taken by Moscow’s forces, and reparations for Ukraine.
The document also states that the current location of the frontline will be the starting point for negotiations about territory.
Russia currently controls a little under one fifth of Ukraine, or about 113,100 square km, about the same size as the US state of Ohio.
Mr Putin ordered tens of thousands of troops to invade Ukraine in February 2022 after eight years of fighting in eastern Ukraine between Russian-backed separatists and Ukrainian troops. The United States says over 1.2 million people have been killed and injured in the war since 2022.
Volodymyr Zelensky has claimed that Ukraine’s operation against Russian airfields struck one third of the strategic cruise missile carriers stationed at air bases.
“Today, a brilliant operation was carried out. The preparation took over a year and a half,” he wrote on X alongside his Sunday evening address.
“What’s most interesting, is that the ‘office’ of our operation on Russian territory was located directly next to FSB headquarters in one of their regions.
“In total, 117 drones were used in the operation with a corresponding number of drone operators involved. 34% of the strategic cruise missile carriers stationed at air bases were hit. We will continue this work.”
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