Russian retaliation threat sees up to 70 air assault weapons used overnight

Jump to content Sign up to our newsletters Subscribe News Sport Voices Culture Lifestyle Travel Premium Close Drone footage shows moment Russian ship is attacked Volodymyr Zelensky has condemned a Russian attack in the Kharkiv region which targeted a blood transfusion centre, leaving several dead and injured. ‘ Russia ‘s guided air bomb against a blood transfusion centre in Ukraine . This evening, the Kupiansk community in Kharkiv region. Dead and wounded are reported. My condolences! Our rescuers are extinguishing the fire,’ Mr Zelensky said without mentioning the exact death toll. ‘This war crime alone says everything about Russian aggression. Beasts that destroy everything that simply allows to live. Defeating terrorists is a matter of honour for everyone who values life,’ he said. It comes as senior officials from some 40 countries including the United States, China and India have begun talks in Saudi Arabia that Kyiv and its allies hope will lead to agreement on key principles for a peaceful end to Russia’s war in Ukraine. Russia is not attending, though the Kremlin has said it will keep an eye on the talks. 1691314167 Russia launched a multi-wave overnight attack on Ukraine with 70 air-assault weapons including cruise and hypersonic missiles as well as Iranian-made drones, Kyiv’s Air Force said on Sunday, and at least 10 missiles appear to got through air defences. Local media said a worker at a grain silo had been wounded in the overnight attack, which appeared to be focused on an area of western Ukraine, far from the front line. ‘In total, in several waves of attacks, from the evening of Aug. 5 to the morning of Aug. 6, 2023, the enemy used 70 means of air assault weapons,’ the Air Force said. ‘Information about Kinzhals is classified,’ the Ukrainian military noted. President Volodymyr Zelensky said people had been killed and wounded in an earlier hit to a blood transfusion centre in the town of Kupiansk, a railway hub fewer than 10 miles from the front in the eastern Kharkiv region. Rescue workers were extinguishing a fire at the scene, he said on Saturday evening, describing the strike as a ‘war crime.’ He did not say how many casualties there were. Maryam Zakir-Hussain 6 August 2023 10:29 1691315154 Ukraine emblem raised to replace Soviet symbol on Kyiv’s Motherland Monument Sam Rkaina 6 August 2023 10:45 1691313293 A hostile drone was destroyed by air defences as it approached Moscow on Sunday, city mayor Sergei Sobyanin said. Sobyanin wrote on messaging app Telegram that the drone approached Moscow around 11am (8am GMT). Russia accused Ukraine of two drone attacks on its capital last week. Sam Rkaina 6 August 2023 10:14 1691312806 Moscow’s Vnukovo airport suspended flights on Sunday, citing unspecified reasons outside of its control, the TASS news agency reported. Vnukovo previously carried out similar suspensions when the Russian capital was attacked by drones last week. Maryam Zakir-Hussain 6 August 2023 10:06 1691311554 Ukraine: Moment camera operator runs for safety during shelling in Donetsk Sam Rkaina 6 August 2023 09:45 1691310026 Russia launched a multi-wave overnight attack on Ukraine, using 70 air-assault weapons, including cruise and hypersonic missiles and Iranian-made drones, Kyiv’s Air Force said on Sunday. The Air Force – which is celebrated in a holiday on Sunday – said on the Telegram messaging channel that Ukraine’s air defence destroyed 30 out of 40 cruise missiles and all 27 of the Shahed drones that Russia launched overnight. ‘In total, in several waves of attacks, from the evening of Aug. 5 to the morning of Aug. 6, 2023, the enemy used 70 means of air assault weapons,’ the Air Force said. It also said Russia launched three Kinzhal hypersonic missiles, but would not disclose further information on them. It was not immediately clear whether there was any damage from the overnight attack or what happened to the 10 cruise missiles that were not shot down. Air Force spokesman Yuriy Ihnat told the national Ukrainian broadcaster that one of the key targets for Russia’s overnight attack was the Khmelnytskiy region. ‘Now, it is the Starokostiantyniv airfield that haunts the enemy,’ Ihnat said. Russia had earlier targeted the Starokostiantyniv military airfield in the Khmelnytskiy region at the end of July. Sam Rkaina 6 August 2023 09:20 1691307947 On the battlefields of Ukraine , the fog of war plagues soldiers. And far from the fighting, a related and just as disorienting miasma afflicts those who seek to understand what’s happening in the vast war. Disinformation, misinformation and absent information all cloud civilians’ understanding. Officials from each side denounce devious plots being prepared by the enemy, which never materialize. They claim victories that can’t be confirmed – and stay quiet about defeats. None of this is unique to the Russia-Ukraine conflict. Any nation at war bends the truth – to boost morale on the home front, to rally support from its allies, to try to persuade its detractors to change their stance. But Europe’s largest land war in decades – and the biggest one since the dawn of the digital age – is taking place in a superheated information space. And modern communications technology, theoretically a force for improving public knowledge, tends to multiply the confusion because deceptions and falsehoods reach audiences instantly. On the battlefields of Ukraine, the fog of war plagues soldiers Maryam Zakir-Hussain 6 August 2023 08:45 1691306747 Harrowing new accounts of Ukrainians being tortured during Russia ‘s eight-month occupation of Kherson are ‘just the tip of the iceberg’, an international team investigating the alleged war crimes has warned. The UN’s special rapporteur on torture, Dr Alice Jill Edwards, told The Independent that similarities in the accounts of victims across several different regions of Ukraine ‘expose a deeper concern that torture and intimidation are a policy and strategy of the Russian state’. Similarities in accounts from different Ukrainian regions ‘expose deeper concerns that Russia is using torture as a strategy’, UN special rapporteur tells The Independent Maryam Zakir-Hussain 6 August 2023 08:25 1691305519 Establishing accurate data on the number of military casualties sustained since Russia ‘s invasion of Ukraine began on 24 February 2022 is difficult for two reasons. The severity of the fighting on the ground and the fact that both sides are inclined to keep their cards close to their chests to avoid damaging morale – especially at a time when the war is entering a pivotal new stage. The Kremlin , in particular, is unlikely to admit to high fatality rates among its troops because to do so would amount to a confession that Vladimir Putin ‘s spurious war to ‘de-Nazify’ Russia’s neighbour state is not going according to plan and, in fact, represents a monumental miscalculation on the part of its leader, who is already under pressure at home over the attempted uprising by Wagner Group mercenaries. Moscow is more likely to downplay its own (rarely offered) numbers – putting the official number at around 6,000 – and accuse its enemies of dishonestly briefing against it whenever outside estimates are offered that imply significant Russian losses. Reliable figures difficult to substantiate amid the fog of war Maryam Zakir-Hussain 6 August 2023 08:05 1691303975 Russia’s air defence system destroyed two aircraft-type drones over the Karachevskyi district in the Bryansk region, Alexander Bogomaz, governor of the Russian region that borders Ukraine, said on Sunday. ‘There were no damages or casualties,’ Bogomaz said on the Telegram channel. It was not clear who launched the drones, and there was no immediate comment from Ukraine. Kyiv almost never publicly claims responsibility for attacks inside Russia or on Russia-controlled territory in Ukraine. Russian authorities say the Bryansk region – which borders both Ukraine and Belarus – has seen multiple attacks by Ukrainian forces and pro-Ukrainian sabotage groups in the 17 months since Russia launched its invasion on Ukraine. Maryam Zakir-Hussain 6 August 2023 07:39 Ukraine Russia Kyiv Crimea Kerch bridge India Saudi Arabia Volodymyr Zelensky Please refresh the page or navigate to another page on the site to be automatically logged in Please refresh your browser to be logged in