Ukraine-Russia war live: Explosions heard in Kyiv as Zelensky says Putin is afraid to use nuclear weapons
Kyiv, its surrounding region and all eastern parts of Ukraine are under air raid alerts this morning
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Loud explosions rocked Kyiv and other parts of Ukraine this morning as Russia launched several waves of drone attacks on the war-hit nation, military officials said.
“Several enemy UAV (unmanned aerial vehicles) are over and near the capital,” Kyiv mayor Vitali Klitschko said on Telegram, urging people to take cover. Witnesses heard numerous blasts in Kyiv in what sounded like air defence systems in operation and saw objects being hit in the air.
Kyiv, its surrounding region and all eastern parts of Ukraine were under air raid alerts.
This comes as Volodymyr Zelensky said his Russian counterpart Vladimir Putin was afraid to use nuclear weapons because “he loves his life”.
“Nobody knows what’s in his head," Zelensky said in the interview with Fox News. "He could use nuclear (weapons) on any country at any time – or not. (But) I don’t think that he will," he said.
Russia said its forces had repelled six new Ukrainian attempts to enter its western Kursk region – a claim Ukraine has not confirmed. Kyiv still holds a stretch of territory in Kursk after a successful incursion last month.
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More on Russia’s Sunday night attacks on Kyiv
A large-scale Russian drone attack on Kyiv was successfully defended by the capital city’s defence systems.
The attack caused fires and damage to a residential building but no casualties were reported, according to Ruslan Kravchenko, head of the military administration in the Kyiv region.
Authorities said every drone which attacked Kyiv was shot down, according to Serhii Popko, the head of the city’s military administration.
Kravchenko said: "The enemy assets have been destroyed. There were no casualties. There were no hits to critical or residential infrastructure.
Wreckage from the downed drones was found in six districts of the Kyiv region. Grass and rubble caught fire due to the fall of the wreckage.
The fire in a residential building was contained by firefighters, police in the district said.
Air quality deteriorates in Sumy region following fires
The Sumy region has seen a “serious deterioration” in its air quality due to an atmospheric vortex of dust and smog from Russia.
Although brought in from the Caspian Sea, the smog has emerged from Russia due to “large scale forest fires”, the Sumy Hydrometeorological Centre said.
“All this mixture of dust and smog was brought in by a southeasterly wind,” it added.
Russia has struggled with forest fiures all year, with more than 2.3 million hectares of forest burned since the start of 2024, the most since 2020, according to The Moscow Times.
Ukraine’s new foreign minister visits Hungary
Ukraine’s Foreign Minister Andrii Sybiha will visit Budapest on Monday at the request of president Zelensky.
Syhbiha will hold talks with his Hungarian counterpart Péter Szijjártó as Ukraine seeks to strengthen relations with its neighbour on the south west border.
The foreign minister, who replaced former foreign minister Dmytro Kuleba earlier this month, is continuing his regional tour after he visited Romania earlier this month.
The foreign ministry’s press office said: "Key topics for discussion will include the development of good neighbourly relations, the implementation of joint projects, particularly in the areas of economy and border infrastructure, the protection of national minorities' rights, advancing Ukraine's accession to the EU and NATO and the Peace Formula as a path to a just end to Russian aggression."
Kyiv defends several waves of overnight drone attacks on Sunday
Kyiv went through multiple waves of drone attacks over Sunday night, the city’s authorities said.
An air raid alert was in place in the capital from 1am until just after 6am this morning, as Ukrainian air defense systems battled the drones.
Vitalii Klitschlo, the mayor of Kyiv, warned residents shortly before 5am to “stay in shelters” due to a wave of drones “over and near the capital”, The Kyiv Independent reported.
There have been no casualties or damage to the city reported.
Ukraine’s Air Force said Russian forces launched 73 Shahed-type drones across Ukraine overnight, with 67 intercepted.
Serhii Popko, head of the Kyiv City Military Administration, said: “All Russian attack drones that threatened Kyiv were neutralized.” It is not clear how many drones attacked Kyiv.
Far-right party against Ukraine aid wins Austria election
The Freedom Party (FPÖ) in Austria won a momentous general election yesterday.
Led by Herbert Kickl, the far-right party has voiced its opposition to aiding Ukraine in its fight against Russia.
It won 29.2 per cent of the vote over the centre-left Social Democrats and the ruling conservative Austrian People’s Party,The Kyiv Independent reported.
The FPÖ has failed to condemn Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, opposes EU sanctions on Russia, and many MPs walked out of a speech to the Austrian parliament by President Zelensky last year.
It comes as the far-right continues to succeed in European general elections, with Italy’s Giorgia Meloni leading a right-wing coalition in government while the AfD in Germany run high in the polls.
But Meloni, in contrast to Kickl, has given her full backing to EU support for Ukraine.
More than 150 battlefield clashes in past 24 hours in Ukraine, says military
A total of 153 combat clashes have occurred on the battlefield over the past day, Ukrainian military officials said in a morning update.
Russian forces have attacked nine settlements 28 times on the Pokrovsk front, while Ukrainian defenders repelled 25 Russian attacks on the Kurakhove front, the General Staff of the Armed Forces of Ukraine said.
In the the Chernihiv and Sumy oblasts, the Russians are actively using guided aerial bombs and attack drones, while also firing mortar and artillery on Ukrainian settlements.
In Kursk, Russian forces are using guided bombs to attacking the territory where Ukrainian forces are continuing operations. Over the past day Russia has launched 21 airstrikes using 30 guided bombs in Kursk, the update said.
Russia launched more than 75 drones and missiles in overnight attack
Russia fired 76 drones and missiles in an overnight attack on Ukraine, the country’s air force said on Telegram this morning.
In the attack, Russia used 73 drones and three missiles, including one ballistic and one guided cruise missile, Ukraine’s air force said.
“One drone flew in the direction of Belarus, three more were lost in location in the northern regions of Ukraine as a result of countermeasures. One UAV remains in the airspace of Ukraine, combat work is underway,” it said in a statement.
It said the attack was repulsed by a combination of aviation, anti-aircraft missile forces, electronic warfare units and mobile fire groups of the air force and the wider Ukrainian military.
Russia claims Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant’s substation attacked
The management of the Russian-held Zaporizhzhia nuclear power station said Ukrainian forces had launched a new attack on a nearby electricity substation, destroying a transformer yesterday.
Russia seized the Zaporizhzhia station, Europe’s largest with six reactors, in the early days of its February 2022 invasion of Ukraine. Each side regularly accuses the other of attacking or plotting to attack the plant.
Yesterday, an artillery strike hit a transformer at the “Raduga” substation in the town of Enerhodar in southeastern Ukraine, the plant’s management said on Telegram.
It described the incident as “yet another terrorist act aimed at destabilising the situation in the Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant’s satellite city”. A photograph shared by authorities showed smoke billowing from the top of a building. It said power supplies to Enerhodar had not been interrupted.
The UN nuclear watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, has stationed monitors permanently at the plant and urged both sides to refrain from all attacks on it.
16 injured in Russian attacks on Zaporizhzhia
At least 16 people were wounded in Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia as Russia struck the nuclear power plant city with multiple guided bombs yesterday, officials said.
Of those injured, two were children aged 8 and 17, said Ivan Fedorov, the governor of the Zaporizhzhia region.
Russia struck three city districts with a total of 13 guided bombs between 5am and 7am on Sunday, he said. The attacks damaged railways, infrastructure, and residential and commercial buildings, Ukrainian officials said.
Volodymyr Zelensky shared the photos from the sites of the attacks, showing charred cars, rescuers battling fires and the impact of a bomb which caused a hole in the side of a residential building.
“Today in Zaporizhzhia, 14 people were injured following a Russian strike. The rubble is being cleared all day long. 2 people were rescued from under the rubble. The aerial bombs hit ordinary residential buildings, ordinary city facilities,” he said in his nightly address.
Russia formalising new nuclear doctrine that lowers threshold, says Kremlin
Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov says amendments to Russia’s nuclear doctrine have been prepared and are about to be formalised.
“The amendments have been prepared, and will now be formalised,” Mr Peskov told a Russian state TV reporter yesterday.
Last week, president Vladimir Putin warned the West that under proposed changes to the doctrine Russia could use nuclear arms if it was struck with conventional missiles and would consider any assault on it supported by a nuclear power to be a joint attack.
Mr Peskov cited the international situation, escalating tensions near Russia’s borders and the growing proximity of Nato infrastructure to them, and what he called the deeper involvement of Western nuclear powers’ in the Ukraine war on Kyiv’s side, as the backdrop for the changes to the doctrine.
He did not mention Russia’s arms imports from Iran and North Korea, including drones and ballistic missiles, which are widely reported to have been used to strike Ukrainian cities.
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