Russia launches deadly attacks across Ukraine before Istanbul talks with Kyiv
Russia has also been launching attacks ahead of the second round of direct talks between Kyiv and Moscow in Turkey today.
Russian shelling and air attacks killed five people outside the southeastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, while a drone attack on the northeast region of Sumy injured at least six people early on Monday, including two children, regional officials said.
Ivan Fedorov, the governor of Zaporizhzhia, said three women were killed by Russian shelling targeting the village of Ternuvate, east of Zaporizhzhia yesterday evening.
A man died in a nearby district in a Russian strike by a guided aerial bomb, Fedorov added.
One person was killed in Russian attacks on Kostyantynivka, a town in the eastern industrial region of Donetsk, on Sunday, governor Vadym Filashkin wrote in a Telegram post earlier today.
In the Kherson region, three people were killed and at least 19 others were injured, including two children, governor Oleksandr Prokudin reported this morning in one of his regular updates on Telegram.
Key events
Ukraine and Russia both launched large-scale drone barrages overnight.
The Russian defence ministry said its air defence units had “intercepted and destroyed” 162 Ukrainian drones.
The majority were downed over regions bordering Ukraine, with 57 intercepted over the Kursk region and 31 over the Belgorod region, it said.
Ukraine said Russia had attacked its territory with 80 drones overnight and four missiles. It said the projectiles managed to strike 12 targets.
Russia launches deadly attacks across Ukraine before Istanbul talks with Kyiv
Russia has also been launching attacks ahead of the second round of direct talks between Kyiv and Moscow in Turkey today.
Russian shelling and air attacks killed five people outside the southeastern Ukrainian city of Zaporizhzhia, while a drone attack on the northeast region of Sumy injured at least six people early on Monday, including two children, regional officials said.
Ivan Fedorov, the governor of Zaporizhzhia, said three women were killed by Russian shelling targeting the village of Ternuvate, east of Zaporizhzhia yesterday evening.
A man died in a nearby district in a Russian strike by a guided aerial bomb, Fedorov added.
One person was killed in Russian attacks on Kostyantynivka, a town in the eastern industrial region of Donetsk, on Sunday, governor Vadym Filashkin wrote in a Telegram post earlier today.
In the Kherson region, three people were killed and at least 19 others were injured, including two children, governor Oleksandr Prokudin reported this morning in one of his regular updates on Telegram.
Andriy Kovalenko, the head of Ukraine’s centre for countering disinformation, has said in a Telegram post that Ukraine destroyed at least 13 planes during the drone attack on Russian airbases yesterday, adding that other military planes were damaged.
As we reported in the opening post, Ukraine claimed to have hit struck more than 40 warplanes thousands of miles from its own territory, in what was one of the most audacious Ukrainian special operations since the outbreak of the war and a significant breach of Russia’s national defences.
Among the more than 40 aircraft reportedly hit were Tu-95 and Tu-22 strategic bombers, which Russia uses to fire long-range missiles at Ukrainian cities.
Ukraine delegation arrives in Istanbul for talks with Russian officials
A Ukrainian delegation has arrived in Istanbul for talks with Russian officials with a meeting planned for Monday afternoon, the spokesperson for Ukraine’s foreign ministry said.
The two sides are set to hold their second round of direct peace talks since 2022, but are still far apart on how to end the war amid an increase in fighting.
After days of uncertainty over whether Ukraine would even attend, Volodymyr Zelenskyy said defence minister Rustem Umerov would meet Russian officials. The first round of the talks more than a week ago yielded the biggest prisoner exchange of the war – but no sense of any consensus on how to halt the fighting.
The two sides will in Turkey present their respective documents outlining their ideas for peace terms, according to US envoy Keith Kellogg, though it is clear that after three years of Russia’s full-scale assault on Ukraine, Moscow and Kyiv remain far apart.
Russia’s lead negotiator, presidential adviser Vladimir Medinsky, was quoted by Tass news agency as saying the Russian side had received a memorandum from Ukraine on a settlement. Zelenskyy had complained for days that Russia had failed to provide a memorandum with its proposals.
In other news:
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Ukraine said on Sunday it had destroyed Russian bombers worth billions of dollars as far away as Siberia, in its longest-range assault of the war. In a spectacular claim, Ukraine said it had damaged $7bn worth of Russian aircraft parked at four airbases thousands of kilometres (miles) away, with unverified video footage showing aircraft engulfed in flames and black smoke. A source in the Ukrainian security services (SBU) said the strikes hit 41 planes that were used to “bomb Ukrainian villages”.
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Several Russian and Ukrainian media outlets reported that Ukraine had carried out the operation by launching drones from lorries parked near military airfields deep inside Russia. Ukrainian officials told the media that the operation – codename “Spiderweb” – had been in preparation for more than 18 months.
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Zelenskyy praised the attacks as a “brilliant operation” that was “aimed exclusively at military targets” and caused “truly significant losses” for Russia. Those who assisted in the operation had been withdrawn from Russia on the eve of the attacks and were safe, he said. Russia has said several “participants” have been arrested.
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Russian investigators on Sunday said they believed “explosions” had caused two bridges in the border regions of Kursk and Bryansk to collapse overnight, derailing trains, killing at least seven people and injuring dozens. The incidents were being treated as terrorism. In Bryansk, which borders Ukraine, a road bridge collapsed onto a railway line late on Saturday, derailing a passenger train heading to Moscow and killing at least seven people. A rail bridge in neighbouring Kursk also collapsed overnight, derailing a freight train and injuring the driver, officials said. Kursk also borders Ukraine. Separately, a railway track on the Unecha-Zhecha section in Russia’s Bryansk region was damaged without casualties, the national operator, Russian Railways, said.
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The commander of Ukraine’s land forces, one of the most senior positions in the country’s military, announced on Sunday that he was tendering his resignation, saying he felt “responsibility” for the deaths of at least 12 soldiers killed in a Russian strike on a training ground earlier that day. Maj Gen Mykhailo Drapatyi has been in charge of Ukraine’s vast wartime land army since November last year. “This is a conscious step dictated by my personal sense of responsibility for the tragedy at the 239th training ground, which resulted in the deaths of our soldiers,” Drapatyi wrote on Facebook.
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Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy, in his nightly video address, said he would summon senior commanders, including top commander Oleksandr Syrskyi, to consider the circumstances of the strike. “This is not the first strike of its kind when Ukraine has lost personnel. I have called a meeting … to deal with this,” he said. “We need all our fighting men at the front to defend Ukraine.” Russia’s military issued a statement saying its forces had launched a missile on a Ukrainian military “tent camp” in central Dniepropetrovsk region.
