Ukraine war: Russian warplanes destroyed in huge drone attack as Kyiv moves south

At least two people were killed and two wounded in an attack on Kyiv on Wednesday morning, Mayor Vitali Klitschko wrote on the Telegram messaging app, as debris from targets destroyed by air defences fell on several buildings in the Ukrainian capital.

The bodies of two people were found in a nonresidential building and one person was wounded by glass shards, Mr Klitschko said, adding that debris fell in four places in the capital.

“Kyiv has not experienced such a powerful attack since spring. The enemy launched a massive, combined attack using drones and missiles,” Serhiy Popko, the head of the city’s military administration said on Telegram

He said that at the beginning several groups of drones were heading for Kyiv from different directions. Russia then launched missiles from Tu-95 strategic aircrafts.

“All in all, the air defence forces destroyed more than 20 enemy targets,” Popko said.

Kyiv authorities said several buildings were damaged by debris while officials in Kyiv region reported that several houses were damaged by missile fragments.

Russia says at least four of its military transport planes were damaged after Ukraine launched its biggest drone attack on Russian soil since the beginning of the invasion.

The Biden administration said it will send an additional $250m in weapons and ammunition to Ukraine as part of its ongoing support of Kyiv’s counteroffensive.

The weapons will be drawn from existing US stockpiles and will include mine-clearing equipment, artillery and rocket rounds, ambulances and medical gear, among other items and spare parts, according to the state department.

“The package will help Ukrainian forces on the battlefield and support its air defenses as Russia continues to launch brutal, brutal strikes against the people of Ukraine, including attacks this past week,” White House spokesperson Karine Jean-Pierre said.

Russia on Wednesday briefly shut down airspace over Moscow and Tula Oblasts after reports of drone strikes on six regions of the country, according to Russian state media.

Moscow’s Vnukovo airport was closed for the night, while flights at Domodedovo and Sheremetyevo airports were delayed, TASS reported.

The closure was ordered after officials said the military was repelling a drone attack on an airport in the western city of Pskov.

Russian president Vladimir Putin is not planning to attend the funeral of mercenary chief Yevgeny Prigozhin following his death in a plane crash, the Kremlin has said.

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov wouldn’t say where or when the chief of the Wagner Group military company would be buried.

St. Petersburg’s Fontanka news outlet and some other media said Prigozhin, 62, will likely be put to rest at the Serafimovskoye cemetery, which has previously been used for high-profile military burials.

On Tuesday, heavy police cordons encircled the cemetery, where Mr Putin’s parents are also buried. Increased police presence was also reported at some other city cemeteries.

President Vladimir Putin moved his £75m superyacht three weeks before Russia invaded Ukraine to avoid having it seized as part of war sanctions, a new investigation has claimed.

Secret documents released by Russian investigative journalist Maria Pevchikh, who heads the anti-corruption foundation set up by Alexei Navalny, show the Russian president had his yacht ‘Graceful’ sail from from Blohm & Voss shipyard in Hamburg, Germany to the Russian semi-exclave of Kaliningrad two weeks before the invasion.

The documents show an email was sent by an employee of Russia’s largest shipping company, the SCF Group, to Blohm & Voss saying the owner of Graceful is unhappy with an ongoing “refit” and wants the ship to sail out of the Hamburg port on 1 February 2022.

The White House has declined to say whether the US has officially implicated Russian president Vladimir Putin in the death of late Wagner Group leader Yevgeny Prigozhin but noted the long list of those perceived as opponents to Mr Putin meeting early demises.

Press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre was asked about Mr Putin’s non-attendance at a funeral service for Prigozhin, who died earlier this month after his private aircraft broke up mid-air in Russian airspace.

US officials have said the break-up of Prighozin’s airplane was likely caused by a bomb planted on board.

“I don’t have any new assessment for you. But it seems pretty evident what happened here … as the president said … ‘there’s not much that happens in Russia that Putin is not behind,’” she said.

A Russian attack on Kyiv killed two people early on Wednesday, Ukrainian officials said, while Russia accused Ukraine of launching what appeared to be the biggest drone attack on Russian soil since the invasion.

Falling debris killed two people and injured another in Kyiv after Russia launched a “massive combined attack” on the Ukrainian capital using drones and missiles, head of the military administration Sergei Popko wrote on Telegram.

Russia launched Shahed drones at Kyiv from various directions and then targeted the capital with missiles from Tu-95ms strategic aircraft, Mr Popko said, adding that more than 20 targets had been brought down by Ukraine’s air defences.

Explosions in Ukraine were also reported in the southern city of Odesa and the Cherkasy region.

Also this morning, Russian officials said drones hit an airport in its western Pskov region near the border with Estonia and Latvia and started a massive fire.

More drones were shot down over Oryol, Bryansk, Ryazan, Kaluga and the Moscow region surrounding the Russian capital, the defence ministry added.

Russia says Ukraine has been steadily escalating its drone attacks on Russian soil and Russian-occupied territory in recent weeks.

Ukraine has not formally claimed responsibility for such attacks, but officials including Volodymyr Zelensky have defended them in principle and expressed satisfaction at the results.

A Moscow court has ruled that a prominent hard-line nationalist who accused Russian president Vladimir Putin of weakness and indecision in Ukraine should remain in prison on charges of extremism.

Igor Strelkov, a retired security officer who led Moscow-backed separatists in eastern Ukraine in 2014 and was convicted of murder in the Netherlands for his role in the downing of a Malaysia Airlines passenger jet that year, has argued that a total mobilisation is needed for Russia to achieve victory.

He has previously criticised Mr Putin as a “nonentity” and a “cowardly mediocrity”.

Moscow’s District Court ordered the 52-year-old Strelkov, whose real name is Igor Girkin, to remain in custody until 18 September.

He was arrested on 21 July and faces charges of making calls for extremist activities. He could receive five years in prison if convicted.