{"id":917617,"date":"2026-04-25T12:55:20","date_gmt":"2026-04-25T12:55:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/917617\/"},"modified":"2026-04-25T12:55:20","modified_gmt":"2026-04-25T12:55:20","slug":"seven-dead-in-major-russian-attack-on-ukraine","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/917617\/","title":{"rendered":"Seven dead in major Russian attack on Ukraine"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Russia&#8217;s Ministry of Defence said it had shot down 127 drones over more than a dozen regions. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The department also said it had taken control of Bochkove, a village in the Kharkiv region, on Saturday morning, according to state-linked news agency Tass.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The settlement is close to Ukraine&#8217;s northern border with Russia, where invading forces have made repeated attempts to push further south towards the city of Kharkiv.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Ukrainian authorities have not commented on Russia&#8217;s claim to have gained control of the village, nor has BBC News been able to independently verify it.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Elsewhere, Romania&#8217;s defence ministry said it was investigating &#8220;the fall of an object&#8221; on its territory close to the Ukrainian border during the Russian attack.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It also clarified a previous statement which incorrectly suggested that British jets based in the country had shot down Russian drones, which would have been the first incident of its kind.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">It said British jets &#8220;did not enter Ukrainian airspace&#8221;, and &#8220;no drones were shot down by the aircraft, because the drones did not breach Romanian airspace&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">A Nato official said British Typhoon jets &#8220;had the authority to engage the potential threats&#8221;, but &#8220;engagement was not required as the targets were neutralised outside Romanian airspace&#8221;.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">With peace talks between Russia and Ukraine at an impasse, Ukraine continues to seek international backing for its military efforts. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">On Friday, Zelensky met Saudi Arabia&#8217;s Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman, the second round of talks between the pair in recent months as Ukraine seeks to broker closer ties with Gulf allies.<\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">Saudi Arabia and its neighbours have a renewed interest in Ukraine&#8217;s drone warfare expertise since coming under Iranian attack in recent weeks. <\/p>\n<p class=\"ssrcss-1q0x1qg-Paragraph e1jhz7w10\">The crown prince and Zelensky discussed strengthening air defence cooperation and joint military production, an official account of the meeting said.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Russia&#8217;s Ministry of Defence said it had shot down 127 drones over more than a dozen regions. The&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":917618,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[13,12,14],"class_list":{"0":"post-917617","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-news","8":"tag-headlines","9":"tag-news","10":"tag-top-stories"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@uk\/116465456029420122","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=917617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/917617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/917618"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=917617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=917617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/uk\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=917617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}