The drone attacks targeting Moscow early on Tuesday, which have been blamed on Kyiv, were by far the largest wave launched against Russia since the start of its war against Ukraine.
There has been speculation that at least one of the drones involved was a UJ-22 produced by the Ukrainian Ukrjet company, which Russia claims has been involved in at least one previous attack. Some other experts disagree, suggesting it is another model of drone, citing differences in appearance.
Are Ukrainian drone attacks becoming more ambitious?
There have been some Ukrainian drone strikes since the beginning of this year both on Russian territory and Russian-controlled territory in Ukraine. Most drone attacks of this kind have focused on areas relatively close to the border or Russian infrastructure and logistics in occupied areas.
However, there has been an apparent pattern of recent efforts by Kyiv to hit targets deep inside Russia with drones.
In February, a UJ-22 crashed 100km from Moscow after managing to travel about 460km into Russian territory without being destroyed by air defences. In May, a pair of drones were shot down over the Kremlin.
Is it certain Ukraine was behind the attacks?
A few weeks after the Kremlin strikes, the New York Times reported that the conclusion of US intelligence agencies was the strikes originated with the Ukrainian intelligence services, although they were less certain that orders for the strikes originated from the top of the Ukrainian government. That in turn was reported to be fuelling disquiet among some officials in Joe Biden’s administration that the war risked escalating beyond Ukraine’s borders.
If it is Ukraine, why is it doing this now?
While some drone attacks fit the category of so-called shaping operations ahead of a Ukrainian counteroffensive – not least the targeting of infrastructure and logistics – these attacks appear aimed more at delivering a psychological impact. For many – not least among the wealthier Russian elites in cities such as Moscow and St Petersburg – the war has been somewhat remote from people’s experiences with the bulk of recruiting and mobilisation from outlying regions.
The attacks seem designed to bring the war home to Russia’s capital, underlying both the fact that Ukraine is capable of skirting Russian air defences repeatedly and that it has the capacity to strike deep inside Russia.
The Nato secretary general, Jens Stoltenberg, says he is optimistic that Sweden will be accepted into the alliance in the next few months.
Last year, Sweden and Finland reversed decades of hesitation and formally applied to join Nato after Russia invaded Ukraine. Entry is contingent on unanimous approval from all members and Turkey has blocked Sweden, after allowing Finland to join several months ago.
Turkey has accused Sweden of allowing members of the Kurdistan Workers’ party (PKK) to settle in its country. The group is outlawed in Turkey.
Stoltenberg said on Tuesday that it was “within reach” for Sweden to join in time for the Nato summit in July.
“There are no guarantees but it’s absolutely possible to reach a solution and enable the decision on full membership for Sweden by then,” Stoltenberg told reporters in Oslo.
US secretary of state Antony Blinken, visiting Sweden, said the Swedish government had already addressed Turkish concerns.
“There is no reason for any further time. Sweden is ready now,” Blinken said.
“We urge both Turkey and Hungary – which also has not yet ratified – to ratify the accession as quickly as possible,” he said.
The state department said Blinken had pushed Sweden’s case directly Tuesday in a telephone call with Turkish foreign minister Mevlüt Çavuşoğlu.
Emmanuel Macron to call for European ‘strategic awakening’ after Ukraine invasion
Patrick Wintour
Emmanuel Macron will make a diplomatic push to reassure central and eastern European countries that France understands that the continent’s security environment has been permanently changed by Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.
In a speech to a security forum in the Slovakian capital, Bratislava, on Wednesday, Macron will call for a “strategic awakening” and highlight the work France has done to protect Nato’s eastern flank, including posting 1,250 French troops in Romania and 300 in Estonia. He will also stress the French role in unlocking the supply of battle tanks to Ukraine.
At a meeting the following day in Moldova that he has largely engineered with fellow European leaders from inside and outside the EU – including Britain’s Rishi Sunak – he will stress France’s commitment to Ukraine’s victory and say he will not tolerate a frozen conflict.
An Élysée official pointed out that Macron had already agreed to an increase of more than a third in France’s planned defence spending for 2024-30 compared with 2019-25. Macron sees the increase as part of a sea change in defence spending under way with no prospect of an end to the new cold war anytime soon.
The president will argue that Europe, backed by EU funding, needs to do more to support its own armament production capacity and explore defence partnerships between member states.
Ukraine is working with British defence company BAE Systems to set up a Ukrainian base to produce and repair weapons from tanks to artillery, President Volodymyr Zelenskiy said on Tuesday.
Zelenskiy’s comments came after he met with senior officials from BAE, including chief executive Charles Woodburn.
“We are working on establishing a suitable base in Ukraine for production and repair. This encompasses a wide range of weaponry, from tanks to artillery,” Zelenskiy said.
Restrictions on grain imports from Ukraine into the EU may need to be extended until at least the end of October, the bloc’s agriculture minister has said, despite fierce opposition from Kyiv.
The restrictions were implemented after complaints from eastern EU countries that a surplus of Ukrainian grain was driving down local prices and affecting the livelihoods of local farmers.
The EU eventually made an agreement with the five states involved – Poland, Hungary, Slovakia, Bulgaria and Romania – to allow them to block the import of grain from Ukraine.
Russia’s invasion last year severely limited the traditional export channel of Ukrainian grain via the Black Sea, leading to the need to export overland via Ukraine’s neighbours. Farmers in some EU countries protested after a slump in prices.
European commissioner for agriculture, Janusz Wojciechowski, said on Tuesday that that the European Commission had not yet agreed to extend the restrictions, but that he hoped he had “managed to convince the remaining member states that this is only fair.”
Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskiy has already said the export restrictions on his country are “completely unacceptable”.
Governor of Russia's Belgorod region says four injured in shelling on town
The governor of Belgorod, a Russian region that borders Ukraine, has claimed that four people were injured in Ukrainian shelling on a town close to the border.
Two people were hospitalised as a result of the artillery strike on Shebekino, Vyacheslav Gladkov said, adding that it was the third time in a week the town had been hit.
On Monday, Gladkov said that two industrial facilities in the town had been hit by strikes. On Saturday, he said he had come under artillery fire when trying to enter the town, which is only about 7 km north of the border with Ukraine.
There was no immediate response from Ukraine to the latest shelling, but Kyiv rarely claims responsibility for attacks in Russia.
Both Russian and Ukrainian representatives at the United Nations stopped short of fully backing the UN nuclear watchdogs plan to prevent catastrophe at Ukraine’s Zaporizhzhia nuclear plant.
International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) chief, Rafael Grossi, said Tuesday he was encouraged by the expressions of support from both countries to his “concrete principles.”
The safety of Europe’s largest nuclear power facility, located in Ukraine’s southeastern region of Zaporizhzhia, has been a concern since Russian forces seized it over a year ago.
It has been subject to frequent shelling and ahead of an expected Ukraine counteroffensive, fears have increased that a nuclear disaster could occur amid increased military activity.
Among the IAEA’s stated principles is that there should be no attacks on, or from the plant and that no heavy weapons should be housed there.
The Russian and Ukrainian envoys at the UN blamed each other’s countries for the crisis at Zaporizhzhia, although they did not reject outright the principles put forward by the IAEA.
“Mr. Grossi’s proposals … are in line with the measures that we’ve already been implementing for a long time,” said Russia’s UN ambassador, Vassily Nebenzia, without evidence.
Ukraine’s ambassador Sergiy Kyslytsya said: “We take note of the director general’s principles to help ensure nuclear safety and security” at Zaporizhzhia.
White House does 'not support attacks inside of Russia'
The White House has said it is still gathering information about Tuesday’s drone strike on Moscow, but could not condone attacks inside Russia.
“We do not support attacks inside of Russia. That’s it. Period,” White House press secretary Karine Jean-Pierre said at a briefing.
Washington is a major supplier of weaponry to Ukraine – on the condition the country uses it to defend itself and to retake Ukrainian territory occupied by Russian forces. US officials have repeatedly said that Ukraine has agreed not to use any American provided weapons for attacks on Russian soil.
On Tuesday, US officials told the AP news agency that a new military aid package for Ukraine is expected to be announced this week and will include additional munitions for drones.
Ukraine drone strike caused fire at Russian oil refinery, claims local governor
A day after Russia accused Ukraine of sending drones to attack buildings in Moscow, the governor of Russia’s Krasnodar region said a drone was the likely cause of a fire that broke out at the Afipsky oil refinery.
The fire was soon extinguished and there were no casualties, governor Veniamin Kondratyev said. The Afipsky refinery is not far from the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk, near another refinery that has been attacked several times this month.
Fire breaks out at Russian oil refinery after suspected drone attack – video
Separately, the governor of Russia’s Belgorod region, to the north of Ukraine, says an artillery strike wounded at least one person in the Russian town of Shebekino. He has blamed Kyiv for the attack.
There was no immediate information on who launched the attacks inside Russia, but Moscow has accused Kyiv of a number strikes in recent weeks, while increasing the intensity of its own bombardment on Ukrainian cities.
Russian drone attacks killed one person and wounded four in Kyiv on Tuesday, according to Ukrainian officials – but the skies over Ukraine were relatively quiet overnight.
Ukraine has denied responsibility for Tuesday’s drone strike on Moscow. Kyiv almost never publicly claims responsibility for attacks in Russia.
Hello and welcome to today’s live coverage of the war in Ukraine. My name’s Jonathan Yerushalmy and I’ll be with you for the next while.
Twenty-four hours after the first large scale drone strike on Moscow, Russian officials in two separate southern regions have accused Ukraine of launching attacks.
The governor of Russia’s Krasnodar region said that a drone strike was likely the cause of a fire that broke out at the Afipsky oil refinery. Meanwhile, the governor of Belgorod region accused Ukraine of carrying out an artillery strike in the town of Shebekino that left at least one person injured.
More on that shortly, in other news today:
Russian president, Vladimir Putin, accused Ukraine of seeking to “frighten” Russians after Moscow was targeted with a large-scale drone attack for the first time in the 15-month war.He said that Ukraine had chosen the path of attempting “to intimidate Russia, Russian citizens [with] attacks on residential buildings” and added that the drone attacks were “clearly a sign of terrorist activity.”
Ukrainian presidential aide, Mykhailo Podolyak, denied Ukraine was involved. However, he did he predict “an increase in the number of attacks”.
One of the drones used in Tuesday morning’s raid on Moscow appears to have been a Ukrainian manufactured UJ 22 drone produced by the Ukrjet company. Alleged footage of the drone, captured in flight during the attack, appears to match released images of the unmanned aerial vehicle which Russia has claimed has been used in other attempted attacks.
James Cleverly, the UK’s foreign secretary, told reporters that Ukraine has the “legitimate right” to defend itself and can “project force” beyond its borders. At a news conference in Estonia on Tuesday, Cleverly said: “[Ukraine] has the right to project force beyond its borders to undermine Russia’s ability to project force into Ukraine itself.”
The Russian defence ministry said eight drones targeted the city overnight but Russian media close to the security services wrote that the number was many times higher, with more than 30 drones participating in the attack.
Ukraine’s capital, Kyiv, faced its third air raid in 24 hours on Tuesday morning. Kyiv’s mayor, Vitali Klitschko, confirmed that 20 residents were evacuated from a damaged building. One person died and four were injured in the strike.
Restrictions on grain imports from Ukraine into the EU would need to be extended, the bloc’s agricultural minister said on Tuesday, despite opposition from Kyiv. The restrictions were implemented after complaints from eastern EU countries that a surplus of Ukrainian grain was driving down local prices and affecting local farmers.
Ukraine wants to begin work to make its Danube shipping canal deeper as early as this year, to expand its alternative routes to export grain, deputy minister of renovation and infrastructure, Yuriy Vaskov, said on Tuesday. The push for alternative export routes has taken on urgency during the war, after Russia blocked Ukraine’s traditional export routes via the Black Sea.
Sweden’s accession into Nato is “within reach”, secretary general Jens Stoltenberg said on Tuesday. Sweden formally applied to join Nato last year, but was blocked by Turkey over claims that Kurdish militants had settled in the country. Stoltenberg said it was “possible to reach a solution and enable the decision on full membership for Sweden by “ the Nato summit in July.
Neither Russia nor Ukraine committed to respect the five principles laid out by the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to try to safeguard Ukraine’s Russian-occupied Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant. The principles included that there should be no attacks on, or from the plant and that no heavy weapons should be housed there.
