Ukraine war briefing: New air assault on Kyiv

Ukrainian air defences were trying to repel a Russian air attack on Kyiv, the mayor, Vitali Klitschko, said early on Sunday. Air raid and missile alerts were issued just before 2am on Sunday morning. Ukrainian news outlets reported the sound of explosions. It comes a week after the biggest Russian air raid of the war against the Ukrainian capital.

Russian drone and missile attacks on Ukraine killed at least two people including a nine-year-old girl on Saturday, officials said. Russian troops launched 109 drones and five missiles across Ukraine overnight and into Saturday, the Ukrainian air force saod. Three of the missiles and 42 drones were destroyed and another 30 drones failed to reach their targets, causing no damage, it said. The girl was killed in a strike on the frontline village of Dolynka in the Zaporizhzhia region, and a 16-year-old was injured, said Zaporizhzhia’s governor, Ivan Fedorov. A man was killed by Russian shelling in Ukraine’s Kherson region, said Oleksandr Prokudin, its governor.

William Christou writes that Ukrainian officials issued evacuation orders on Saturday for 11 more villages in the northern Sumy region amid Russian territorial gains. The Russian ministry of defence said it had taken control of the village of Novopil in the eastern Donetsk region, as well as the village of Vodolahy in the northern Sumy region. By Sunday, 213 settlements were under evacuation orders in Sumy, which borders Russia’s Kursk region. The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskyy, has said about 50,000 Russian troops have amassed in the area with the intention of launching an offensive to carve out a buffer zone inside Ukrainian territory.

Ukraine’s top army chief, Oleksandr Syrskyi, said on Saturday that Russian forces were focusing their main offensive efforts on Pokrovsk, Torets and Lyman in the Donetsk region, as well as the Sumy border area. Syrskyi said Ukrainian forces continued holding territory in Russia’s Kursk region, counter to Russian claims. In Kursk, a local official said 14 people were injured including four children when Ukrainian drones struck apartment buildings.

Zelenskyy said Russia was “undermining diplomacy” by withholding a promised memorandum setting out its position on ending the more than three-year war. Talks have been tentatively scheduled for Istanbul during the coming week but “for some reason, the Russians are concealing this document. This is an absolutely bizarre position. There is no clarity about the format,” Zelenskyy said. Ukraine has provided its peace terms but in a delaying tactic the Kremlin has said it will only reciprocate at the negotiating table, leaving Kyiv unable to properly prepare for the meeting.