Three people have been killed in Ukraine’s second-biggest city of Kharkiv as Moscow’s forces continue overnight drone attacks.. Meanwhile, US defence secretary Pete Hegseth has said Washington will cut military aid to Ukraine. Listen to The World podcast as you scroll.
Wednesday 11 June 2025 11:28, UK
Footage from Kharkiv shows the destruction caused by Russia’s overnight drone attack on the city.
Firefighters spent hours tackling the blazes caused by the attack, which officials said killed three people and injured dozens more.
Watch below as Ukrainian emergency services battled to keep fires under control and searched the rubble for survivors.
Poland has detained and charged one of its citizens with spying for Russian intelligence services.
Warsaw’s state prosecutor’s office says the suspect, a 28-year-old named as Wiktor Z, collected and distributed information concerning the functioning of facilities key to Poland’s defence.
The prosecutor’s statement says the suspect “acted out of ideological motives and pro-Russian beliefs” and could now face between eight years and life in prison.
Warsaw has accused Moscow of being behind a series of acts of sabotage in Poland, including a huge fire at a shopping centre last year. In response, Moscow has accused Poland of Russophobia.
Russia has returned the bodies of 1,212 Ukrainian soldiers as part of a deal reached during peace talks in Istanbul, Kyiv officials have said.
The group responsible for coordinating the release on Ukraine’s side said the identities of the bodies would be established as soon as possible.
It added the bodies of soldiers received today were killed in Ukraine’s Kharkiv, Luhansk, Donetsk, Kherson and Zaporizhzhia regions, as well as in Russia’s Kursk region.
The return is part of a deal agreed between Russia and Ukraine during peace talks in Turkey last week. The agreement also included the exchange of prisoners, with handovers getting under way this week.
The Kremlin said yesterday that it had been waiting “several days” to return the bodies, which it said were in refrigerated trucks near the Ukraine border.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy has accused Moscow of “trying to play some kind of dirty political and information game” around the issue of the exchanges.
Russia has said it is ready to receive any bodies of Russian soldiers that Kyiv is able to return.
Volodymyr Zelenskyy says Russia won’t engage in “genuine diplomacy” until Ukraine’s allies “make things more difficult” for Moscow.
Posting on social media, Ukraine’s president said recovery efforts were still under way in Kharkiv after an overnight Russian drone attack killed three people and injured 64.
“Every new day now brings new vile Russian attacks, and almost every strike is telling,” he said. “Russia deserves increased pressure, and it proves with every hit on ordinary life that the current pressure is not enough.
“We must not be afraid or postpone new decisions that could make things more difficult for Russia. Without this, they will not engage in genuine diplomacy.”
Talks between the US and Russia to resolve issues in their bilateral relations will move to Moscow and take place “very soon”, Russia’s ambassador to Washington says.
Officials from the two countries met for talks in February and April in Turkey, aimed at restoring diplomatic relations between Moscow and Washington. The third round of talks will now move to Russia, Alexander Darchiev told Russia’s TASS news agency.
Sergei Ryabkov, Russia’s deputy foreign minister, said Moscow will seek “clearer answers” over its proposal to resume direct flights between the US and Russia.
Wider global issues, such as developments in the Middle East and talks over Iran’s nuclear program, will also be discussed, Ryabkov said.
By Deborah Haynes, security and defence editor
“The Russians are signalling that there may be – let’s call it what it is – there may be an attack.”
Fictional UK home secretary
The warning from the home secretary at an emergency Cobra meeting is stark. The prime minister must decide what to do after the Kremlin deployed a large task force of warships, fighter jets and submarines to the North Atlantic.
The whole of the United Kingdom is within range of their missiles.
This is the opening scene of a new five-part podcast series from Sky News and Tortoise called The Wargame. It simulates a Russian attack on the UK.
A year in the making, but recorded in just one day, The Wargame explores the reality of the threat that Vladimir Putin’s Russia could pose to Britain, its people and normal, everyday life.
Finland’s foreign ministry says it has summoned Russia’s top diplomat in the country over a suspected violation of its airspace.
It claims a Russian military aircraft entered its airspace off the coast of Porvoo, in the southern part of the country, yesterday, adding that its border guard was investigating.
“The foreign ministry has invited Russia’s acting head of mission to speak on the issue today,” the Finnish ministry said in a statement to the Reuters news agency.
Russia’s embassy in Helsinki did not immediately respond to a request for comment when contacted by Reuters.
Finland shares an 833-mile (1,340km) border with Russia – the longest of any NATO member. It has accused Moscow of violating its airspace several times this year.
US defence secretary Pete Hegseth says the upcoming defence budget will reduce military aid to Ukraine.
In a marked shift away from US policy under previous president Joe Biden, Hegseth says the Trump administration favours a negotiated settlement over continued military support for Kyiv.
The US has provided around $66bn (£49bn) in military aid to Ukraine since Russia’s full-scale invasion began in February 2022.
“It is a reduction in this budget,” Hegseth said yesterday. “This administration takes a very different view of that conflict.
“We believe that a negotiated, peaceful settlement is in the best interest of both parties and our nation’s interests, especially with all the competing interests around the globe.”
The announcement comes as Russia continues to launch near-daily drone and missile attacks on Ukraine.
The strikes launched by Moscow on Monday morning constituted the largest aerial attack faced by Ukraine since the war began, with Kyiv’s military reporting 479 drones and 20 missiles were fired by Russia.
A third person has died after overnight Russian drone strikes on Kharkiv, city officials have said.
Posting on Telegram, Oleg Synegubov, head of the wider Kharkiv administration, said a 65-year-old man had died in hospital from “deep, extensive burns”.
Ukraine’s emergency services said the other two victims were a 66-year-old man and a 47-year-old woman. In all, 60 people were injured, including nine children.
A big fire broke out at a gunpowder plant in Russia’s Tambov region overnight, according to Russian Telegram channels.
Residents in the town of Kotovsk, around 300 miles southeast of Moscow, reported hearing multiple explosions as Ukrainian drones struck the region. Videos posted on social media show a big blaze, apparently in the vicinity of the plant.
Reports on Russian state media said the fire was caused by a large-scale drone attack on the region, but didn’t mention an attack on the plant.
The plant is one of the biggest industrial facilities in Russia that manufactures ammunition for the army and has been the target of previous drone attacks.
Sky News cannot independently verify reports of the attack on the plant. Ukraine’s military has not commented.
For context: Kyiv’s forces regularly conduct drone attacks and sabotage acts on Russian territory, targeting military assets, oil refineries and industrial facilities.
On Monday, a Ukrainian drone attack hit a Russian electronics company 800 miles over the border. That followed a larger operation last week called Operation Spider’s Web, which targeted Russian jets.
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