Ukraine-Russia war latest: Kyiv launches more than 800 drones after targeting ‘Russian Starlink’ network

Ukraine said yesterday that its forces struck Russia’s Savasleyka airbase, which houses MiG-31K fighter jets that Moscow uses to launch ballistic missiles against Kyiv.

Ukraine also carried out a missile strike against a key Russian space rocket centre in Samara city which it claimed deploys satellite communications systems for the battlefield.

The rocket centre has been instrumental in developing Soyuz-type launch vehicles, including the Soyuz-2.1b three-stage carrier rocket, Kyiv claimed.

Ukrainian defence manufacturer Fire Point confirmed yesterday that Kyiv used FP-5 Flamingo cruise missiles to strike the Progress Space Rocket Centre.

The attacks come amid Kyiv’s widely reported anti-ballistic missile interceptor shortage.

Kyiv has reportedly been using British drones to carry out deep strikes within Russia over the past six months.

While most of the strikes have been carried out by Ukrainian drones, British drones have also yielded success, The Times reported yesterday, citing a Ukrainian military source.

The British drones have struck oil refineries near Moscow as well as in Yaroslavl and Volgograd.

The Nyan jet-powered drone, tested by the British Royal Navy, has also been used to target the Russian city of Belgorod near Ukraine’s border with Russia, according to the paper.

Russian missile strikes on Kyiv sparked fires in at least two districts, mayor Vitali Klitschko said.

The fires were caused by falling debris from the airstrikes in a non-residential part of a northern suburb, he said in a Telegram post.

The strikes injured at least one person, the city’s military administration said.

North Korean leader Kim Jong Un reaffirmed deepening ties with Russia in a message to Russian president Vladimir Putin on the anniversary of Pyongyang’s liberation from Japanese colonial rule.

Earlier, Putin said the bond between Moscow and Pyongyang was forged as Soviet soldiers “fought against Japan”, and that cooperation would continue “in all the sectors”.

Kim expressed hope for the future of the ties between the two countries that had “carried forward the ⁠history of common struggle for justice and precious traditions of ​friendship”, KNCA reported.

North Korea’s ties with Russia have deepened after Pyongyang began deploying troops and weapons to support Russia’s war against Ukraine.

Romania shot down a drone illegally entering its airspace today, marking the fourth time the eastern European country has neutralised an uncrewed aircraft breaching its borders.

Romania’s defence ministry did not share details on the origin of the drone, but said its radars detected it entering the country from ‌neighbouring Moldova,

The drone was shot down by a Spanish F-18 fighter jet pilot on a NATO air policing mission.

The jet “made radar contact with the target and received permission to engage it,” the defence ministry said, adding that the unmanned vehicle was shot down at 5.01am local time.

A Russian strike on an apartment block in southeastern Ukraine on Saturday killed a three-month-old baby and wounded 11 people, local officials said.

Drones hit the building in the town of Marhanets, said Oleksandr Hanzha, head of the Dnipropetrovsk Regional Military Administration.

Meanwhile, hundreds of mourners gathered in Kyiv at a memorial ceremony dedicated to 3-year-old Dmytro Kucher and his grandparents, Halyna and Petro Kucher, who were killed by a Russian drone strike on August 8.

Multiple Russian drones destroyed the family’s home in the Brovary district, northeast of Kyiv. An initial ceremony was held at Kyiv’s Spaskyi Lyceum, where Halyna had served as school principal for more than 20 years, before moving to a churchyard in the suburb of Zazymia, close to the former family home.

The couple’s son, Oleksandr Kucher, said that his parents had been together since the fifth grade. “They died together,” he said. “The Shahed (drone) completely tore my mother apart. We recovered only about two kilograms (about 4.4 pounds) of her remains.”

He described his 3-year-old son, Dmytro, as “our little miracle” and “the soul of our family.”

“He kept my parents, me and our entire family going,” Kucher said. Russia’s Ministry of Defense also said Saturday that it had targeted warehouses and infrastructure at the Ukrainian ports of Odesa, Izmail and Yuzhnyi.Ukraine’s Air Force said that Russia launched 152 drones over the country Saturday, of which 124 were destroyed.

Ukraine said on Saturday its long-range strikes had hit a Russian military airfield and a rocket centre that Kyiv says supports Russia’s nascent Starlink-style satellite internet network.

President Volodymyr Zelensky said Flamingo cruise missiles struck the rocket facility, about 900 km (560 miles) from Ukraine’s border, as part of Kyiv’s campaign to pressure Moscow to end the more than four-year war by targeting sites deep inside Russia.

“It is important that Russia’s war potential be reduced. Peace is needed, and this must be evident in Russia through concrete damage to specific facilities,” he said in a post on X.

Russia has asked Washington and Ankara to explain reports of possible plans to transfer to Kyiv a “substantial arsenal” of US weapons and ammunition held by Turkey, the spokeswoman for Russia’s foreign ministry said on Saturday.

Such ⁠a transfer would cause “serious harm … to our bilateral relations with Washington and ‌Ankara,” spokeswoman Maria ​Zakharova ‌said in ⁠a statement.