Ukraine war live: Kyiv stops largest Russian drone attack of the year

The Russian military have begun a third round of drills with tactical nuclear weapons, part of the Kremlin’s messaging intended to force the West to limit its support for Ukraine.

The Russian Defense Ministry said the drills will feature units of the central and southern military districts armed with Iskander short-range missiles. T

hey will practice receiving nuclear weapons from storage and deploying them to designated launch areas.

The maneuvers will also include air force units that will arm their warplanes with nuclear weapons and perform patrol flights.

The ministry said the drills are intended to maintain troops’ readiness for combat missions.Tactical nuclear weapons include bombs, warheads for short-range missiles and artillery munitions and are meant for use on a battlefield.

They are typically far less powerful than strategic weapons — massive warheads that arm intercontinental ballistic missiles and are intended to obliterate entire cities.

The previous two rounds of the maneuvers were held in May and June. The drills in June were conducted jointly with the armed forces of Russia’s ally Belarus.

Ukraine has the production capacity to produce more than three million drones a year, but will require additional funding from international partners, according to the Ukrainian Deputy Minister of Strategic Industries.

“We have large enough production capacity, we can produce more than 3 million drones of various types today,” Anna Gvozdiar said, according to Ukrainian national broadcaster Suspilne.

Ukraine needs financing for the production of drones, as the state can only cover part of the budget. Funding from foreign partners, such as Canada, will help to cover the rest of the financing, Ms Gvozdiar said.

She added Kyiv is in talks with the UK government to to help purchase domestically-produced drones for the Ukrainian military.

The UK has pledged £12.5 billion in support to Ukraine since February 2022, of which £7.6 billion is for military assistance. Sir Keir Starmer’s Labour government have reaffirmed its commitment to supporting Ukraine.

Ukraine’s air force has said it repelled one of Russia’s largest long-range drone attacks of the war overnight, shooting down all 89 drones launched at Kyiv, the surrounding region and other areas.

The attack, which came more than 29 months after Russia’s full-scale invasion, primarily targeted Kyiv and the surrounding region where local authorities said more than 40 drones were shot down. An air raid alert remained in place most of the night.

The capital’s military administration said no civilian or critical infrastructure took a direct hit, but debris damaged the roofs, windows and facades of 13 private residences in the region, according to authorities there.

“This is one of the most massive attacks by Shahed-131/136 strike drones,” the air force said, naming the type of drone it says Russia has used in the thousands for strikes on Ukraine.

Some 11,500 residents sheltered for safety in metro stations in the night as the drones came in several waves from “all possible directions,” the city authorities said.

The Association of Ukrainian Women in Coventry have purchased and supplied medical equipment and hygiene products to Ukraine as part of the Save a Life charity event.

Some of the purchased items will be used in hospitals for wounded soldiers and children and some will be sent to the frontline.

“For the funds raised, we purchased and sent to Ukraine 3 defibrillators, an oxygen concentrator, an EcoFlow charging station, turnstiles, medicines, foot deodorants, mosquito repellent, accessories for sewing stretchers, first aid kits, and hygiene products,” a post on Facebook by the organisation read.

An ammunition factory which Germany’s Rheinmetall has said it will build in Ukraine will become a “legitimate target” for the Russian military, Russian Deputy Foreign Ministry spokesman Andrei Nastasin said.

The German defence company said earlier this month that it had received an order from the Ukrainian government for the construction of an ammunition factory in Ukraine.

Ukraine’s Navy carried out an attack on a weapons storage facility near the Russian city of Kursk, Kyiv army officials have said.

Kursk is located 62 miles northeast of the Ukrainian border and 435 miles from Odesa, where Ukraine’s Navy is headquartered.

The attack targeted “a warehouse for storing weapons and military equipment” near Kursk, the General Staff of Ukraine’s Armed Forces said.

“The work of enemy air defense and explosions at aiming points were observed.”

He added: “The information about the result of the damage is being clarified.”

Russian forces are using North Korean provided Bulsae-4 anti-tank guided missile, according to a Ukrainian battalion operating at the border.

American think tank the Institute for the Study of War (ISW) said if these reports are confirmed to could indicate North Korea are expanding the number of weapons has been providing to Russia.

“The increase in volume and variety of North Korean weapons provisions to Russia is likely a stipulation of the comprehensive strategic partnership agreement that Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean dictator Kim Jong Un signed during Putin’s visit to Pyongyang in June 2024,” the ISW said.

A number of Russian dissidents and people convicted for their opposition to Moscow’s war in Ukraine have disappeared from Russian prisons in recent days, in what rights activists say is a possible sign that a prisoner swap with the West may be close.

Although Russia does move prisoners to other incarceration facilities without informing their relatives and lawyers, the number of prisoners who have been moved elsewhere in recent days – at least seven – and the similarity of their profiles, is highly unusual.

Among those whose relatives and supporters say they are no longer in the same prison, but have, according to prison authorities, “departed” to another facility are opposition politician Ilya Yashin, prominent human rights activist Oleg Orlov and Danila Krinari, a man convicted of secretly cooperating with foreign governments.

Others to have gone missing include German-Russian citizen Kevin Lik who was convicted of treason, opposition activists Liliya Chanysheva and Ksenia Fadeeva, and anti-war artist Sasha Skochilenko.

All of them are individuals that the Russian state has labelled, for different reasons, as dangerous extremists. In the West, they are seen by governments and activists as wrongly detained political prisoners.

“We all hope that these are good signs,” Ivan Pavlov, a prominent human rights activist who fled Russia and is now based in Prague, told Reuters.

“We hope that they (the authorities) have probably taken them all out of their prisons to gather them together in one place in preparation for an exchange.”

Pavlov, whom Russian authorities have designated “a foreign agent,” said the prisoners were most likely to have been taken to Moscow’s Lefortovo Prison.

President Vladimir Putin would then need to formally pardon them before they were put on a plane to a destination in Europe, which Pavlov said could be in Germany.

Pavlov, the rights lawyer, said the exchange would be carried out in an atmosphere of secrecy.

“The main thing is that they (the people detained in Russia) will get their freedom. They are hostages and political prisoners and the important thing is to get as many of them out as possible,” he said.