Latest news with #RussianDrones
Arab News
6 days ago
- Politics
- Arab News
Ukraine's Sumy region on edge as Russian advance closes in
STETS'KIVKA: Despite the driving rain, a few elderly residents wander into the streets of Stetskivka in northeast Ukraine to catch a yellow bus to go shopping in nearby Sumy, the regional capital. They are worried about the Russian drones that have been striking the area with increasing regularity, more than three years into Moscow's invasion. 'I'm afraid. Nobody knows what could happen to the bus we take,' Galyna Golovko, 69, told AFP at the small shop she runs near the bus stop. Golovko said she never goes out in the morning or evening when Russian drones criss-cross the sky. 'It's scary how many drones fly in the morning.... In the morning and in the evening it's just hell,' she said. The border with the neighboring Russian region of Kursk is just 17 kilometers (11 miles) away. The Sumy region was the starting point for a Ukrainian incursion into Kursk last year. Ukraine held swathes of the territory for eight months, until a spring offensive by Russian forces supported by North Korean troops pushed them back. Moscow has since advanced toward the city of Sumy, taking several villages along the way and forcing mandatory evacuations of civilian residents. At the Stetskivka bus stop, an elderly woman said she had packed up in case Russian troops arrive in town, where Ukrainian soldiers have replaced a pre-war population of 5,500 people. The town is just 10 kilometers from the front line, and residents said there is heavy fighting nearby. Beyond Stetskivka, 'everything has been destroyed, there is not a single village,' Golovko said. On her shop counter, there was a plastic box with a few banknotes — donations for a local family that lost its home, destroyed by a Russian glide bomb. Ten kilometers to the south lies Sumy, a city that had 255,000 inhabitants before the war. So far, restaurants are crowded and there seems little concern about the Russian advance. But buildings in the city bear the scars of Russian bombardments. And, when the sounds of car horns go down in the evenings, explosions can be heard in the distance. The streets are lined with concrete bunkers against the increasingly frequent strikes from Russia, which has said it wants to set up a 'buffer zone' to prevent future Ukrainian incursions. 'The enemy is trying to advance,' said Anvar, commander of the drone battalion of the 225th regiment, which is leading the defense of the region. 'We are pushing them back. Sometimes we advance, sometimes they do,' he told AFP in an apartment that serves as a base for his unit. 'We still have troops in the Kursk region. Nobody has tried to drive them out,' he said, calling the conflict in the region a 'war of positions.' Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Friday said the Russian offensive in Sumy had been stopped, just a day after Russian forces said they had captured another village in the region. Sitting next to Anvar, one of his men soldered microprocessors in silence, except for electronic clicking that made the room feel like a laboratory. Surrounded by 3D printers and piles of batteries, the members of the brigade are busy transforming Chinese drones into flying weapons. 'It is now a drone war,' the commander said. Anvar said that Russia was continually sending 'cannon fodder' along this part of the front to try and overwhelm Ukrainian troops. 'I know people who have gone mad because of the number of people they manage to kill in a day.' Russian soldiers 'continue marching calmly' amid the bodies of their fallen comrades, he said. In Stetskivka, Golovko voiced confidence that Ukrainian soldiers would hold the line and said she was 'not going anywhere.' 'I will stay at home,' she said tearfully, beating the counter with her fist. 'I have traveled to Russia. We have friends there, and relatives. Everything was fine before. 'One day, this madness will end. The madness that Putin unleashed will end,' she said in a shaky voice. fv/dt/jhb
The Independent
10-06-2025
- Politics
- The Independent
Cathedral described as ‘the soul of all Ukraine' damaged in Russian attack
A Russian attack has damaged Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, a UNESCO world heritage site and one of Ukraine 's most significant monuments, according to Ukraine's culture minister. Mykola Tochytskyi announced on Facebook that the overnight attack struck"at the very heart of our identity again". He called the 11th-century cathedral "the soul of all Ukraine" and a shrine that "survived for centuries". "Saint Sophia Cathedral in Kyiv, a shrine which survived for centuries and symbolises the birth of our statehood, was damaged," he said. He added that the blast wave damaged the cornice on the main apse of the landmark. Video from the scene showed pieces of white plaster crumbled to the ground. This is the first time since the start of the war that the cathedral has been damaged, first deputy director general of the site Vadym Kyrylenko told reporters. But Russian drones flying close to the ground present a threat amid continuous air attacks on the capital. "As our security guards say, sometimes (drones) almost touch the crosses on the bell tower 76 meters above the ground," he said. The cathedral was added to UNESCO's World Heritage list in 1990 for its architectural importance. The United Nations ' heritage body describes the white cathedral and monastery complex with green roofs and golden domes as a symbol of the "new Constantinople" created in the region. Kyrylenko reported no critical damage but said the almost 1000-year-old site will be inspected by a specialized institute and repaired. Over a year after Russia's full-scale invasion in February 2022, UNESCO's World Heritage Committee placed the Saint Sophia Cathedral on the list of World Heritage in Danger "due to the threat of destruction the Russian offensive poses" to the monument and integrity of its ancient interiors, mosaics and frescoes. The site was also vulnerable to shock waves it said. "It is not only protected by our state, it is protected by the whole world. It is the heritage of the whole world," Kyrylenko said.
New York Times
08-06-2025
- Politics
- New York Times
Helping Save Kyiv From Drones: Volunteers, Caffeine and Vintage Guns
Clad in khaki fatigues, the Ukrainian volunteers lounged on a concrete terrace as dusk swallowed the surrounding fields. Music trickled from a phone, mingling with bursts of laughter — a fleeting ease before what they had been warned would be a 'hot night.' They were members of one of many civilian units guarding the skies around the capital, Kyiv, on a recent Saturday night, their job to shoot down incoming Russian drones using old machine guns supplied by the Ukrainian Army. As they do every night, the volunteers — university professors, builders, salesmen — stood ready at their base in Pereiaslav, a town 50 miles southeast of Kyiv, waiting for the signal to deploy. At 11:35 p.m., Mykhailo's phone rang. He picked it up, then shouted, 'Let's go!' The chase was on. Mykhailo and the other two members of his crew jumped into a gray pickup parked at the foot of the terrace and sped off, racing through narrow roads into the countryside. They pulled up beside an open field a few minutes later and jumped out. Moving quickly, they set up three tripods — two for machine guns, the third for night-vision binoculars and a laser. Then, Mykhailo — who, like other crew members in this article, asked to be identified by only his first name for security reasons, according to military protocol — glanced at a tablet set on the pickup's hood. Its screen lit up with a swarm of red triangles sweeping across a live map of Ukraine; they showed Russian attack drones, several dozen miles away. 'Three heading our way,' said Mykhailo, who is a trade union representative by day. 'Let's wait.' While Russia intensifies its drone assaults on Ukraine, volunteer crews like the one in Pereiaslav are spending sleepless nights trying to repel them. As the crew deployed last Saturday, Russia launched a record-breaking 472 drones and decoys at Ukraine. This Friday, Russia sent off another swarm of more than than 400 drones and decoys, in addition to nearly 40 cruise missiles and six ballistic missiles at towns and cities across the country, according to the Ukrainian Air Force, in one of the largest barrages of the war. Want all of The Times? Subscribe.
Yahoo
07-06-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Russia launches 215 UAVs and missiles to attack Ukraine overnight
The Russians launched 215 aerial attack assets to strike Ukraine on the night of 6-7 June, with 174 of them failing to reach their targets. Source: Ukraine's Air Forces Details: The Air Forces wrote that the Russians had attacked with 206 drones, two Iskander-M/KN-23 ballistic missiles, six Kh-59/69 air-to-surface missiles and one Iskander-K cruise missile. The Air Forces reported 87 Russian Shahed drones had been destroyed and another 80 disappeared from radar or suppressed by electronic warfare. In addition, six Kh-59/69 and Iskander-K missiles were either downed or disappeared from radar due to electronic warfare. Strikes were recorded at ten locations, with debris falling in seven more. Support Ukrainska Pravda on Patreon!
Al Jazeera
06-06-2025
- General
- Al Jazeera
Russia-Ukraine war: List of key events, day 1,198
Here's where things stand on Friday, June 6 : Russian drones attacked Ukraine's capital, Kyiv, where authorities said drone fragments had fallen in at least three districts of the city. Tymur Tkachenko, head of the city's military administration, said the strikes triggered fires in residential buildings in different parts of the city. There were no immediate reports on casualties. Air defence units were in action repelling Russian drones, according to military authorities in Kyiv, as news outlets reported a series of explosions in the city.
