Air alert warnings have sounded across Ukraine as Russia launched a massive missile attack. Ukrainian authorities reported the take-off of Tu-95 strategic bombers in the early hours of Thursday morning, with explosions heard soon after.
In Dnipro there were explosions shortly after 6am in the centre of the city. There were also reports of explosions in Zaporizhzhia, the capital, Kyiv, and the western city of Lviv. Andriy Sadoviy, the mayor of Lviv, said 10 Russian missiles had been aimed at the Lviv region. In Zaporizhzhia, close to the front line with Russian forces, there were reports of a damaged apartment building.
An oil depot in Kursk, Russia, has been blown up in a Ukrainian drone attack, according to reports circulating online. Videos showed a large fire at the site on Wednesday night. “As a result of an attack by a Ukrainian UAV in the Kursk region, a fire occurred at an oil depot,” said a Telegram account in the name of Roman Starovoit, Russian governor of the Kursk region. “According to preliminary information, there are no casualties. All special services are currently working on the spot. Please remain calm.”
Ukraine’s military said it sank a Russian landing ship in its latest sea drone attack against Moscow’s Black Sea fleet. Ukrainian military intelligence released video on Wednesday that it said showed several naval drones approaching the Ropucha-class large landing ship Cesar Kunikov off the coast of Crimea, before the damaged ship was shown turned on its side and sinking.
Russian military bloggers, who regularly publish information later confirmed by Russia’s military, corroborated reports of the attack. The strike appears to be the second operation this month to destroy a Russian warship operating in the Black Sea. On 1 February, Ukrainian Magura V5 sea drones struck the Russian warship Ivanovets.
Ukraine’s president, Volodymr Zelenskiy, praised the achievement, saying “we will clear the Black Sea of Russian terrorist objects step by step”. Nato also praised the Caesar Kunikov strike as a “great victory for Ukrainians”.
Ukraine’s new military commander-in-chief, has warned the situation on the frontline remains “extremely difficult”. On his first visit to the 1,000-kilometre (620-mile) front since his promotion, Oleksandr Syrsky said: “The operational environment is extremely complex and stressful. The Russian occupiers continue to increase their efforts and have a numerical advantage in personnel.”
Along with the defence minister Rustem Umerov, Syrsky visited troops fighting around Avdiivka, which the Ukrainian army says is under siege by 50,000 Russian soldiers. “We are doing everything possible to prevent the enemy from advancing deep into our territory,” Syrsky said.
A Russian strike on a hospital in the eastern town of Selydove killed a 38-year-old pregnant woman, another women and her nine-year-old son, Ukraine’s general prosecutor said. A dozen others, including a six-month-old baby, were wounded.
Germany has met a Nato alliance target to spend 2% of its gross domestic product on defence for the first time since 1992, the dpa news agency reported on Wednesday. Nato said Europe was meeting an alliance spending target and the US needed allies, after former US president Donald Trump suggested Washington might not protect countries that did not spend enough.
The Nato chief, Jens Stoltenberg, urged the Republican-controlled US House of Representatives to pass a “vital” military aid package for Ukraine, warning lawmakers that China would be emboldened if Russia won its war.
The British foreign secretary, David Cameron, also urged US lawmakers to vote for the $95bn security aid package to Ukraine and other countries. “Britain has announced its support package for the next year. The European Union has announced their package for the next year. And I urge members of Congress in the United States who will be looking at this today to vote for the package.”
The Republican Speaker of the US House, Mike Johnson, said it would not be “jammed” into passing the foreign aid package. The Associated Press reported that Johnson appeared to have no clear strategy for what to do next after a bipartisan majority of the Senate voted in favour of the bill. The White House spokeswoman Karine Jean-Pierre said Johnson was in the process of “negotiating with himself”.
The US, EU and partners have discussed Russia sanctions at a meeting in Brussels ahead of the war’s two-year anniversary. Sanctions are estimated to have cost Russia $400bn in revenue so far as well as degrading its military. “Many of us are prepared to roll out quite robust anniversary packages,” a senior US official told Reuters. The official added that US action would include countering sanctions evasion.
Separately in Brussels on Wednesday, EU envoys held a first discussion of what would be the union’s 13th package of sanctions against Russia since the start of the war in Ukraine. An official said new EU sanctions would blacklist almost 200 people and entities.
The EU is proposing to sanction companies in mainland China for the first time as part of its latest measures aimed at shutting down loopholes that allow Russia to get military technology via third countries. Three companies in mainland China, as well as four in Hong Kong and one in India, are on a 91-page document of companies and individuals EU member states want to sanction before the second anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
Western defence ministers in the Ukraine contact group met in person and online on Wednesday on Wednesday to discuss fresh donations of equipment to the Ukrainians.
The government of neutral Switzerland said it would be ramping up military spending over the coming years – the latest European country to do since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine. President Viola Amherd said that as of 2035, Sfr20bn ($22.58bn) in additional funding would be available compared with what was planned before the Ukraine war. Switzerland allocated only Sfr1.9bn for defence in 2023, Reuters reported.
The head of the House intelligence committee, Mike Turner, has called for the Biden administration to declassify information on what he called a “serious national security threat”, which was later reported to involve supposed Russian plans to deploy nuclear weapons in space.
