There’s been another night of substantial Russian missile attacks and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities, which has become something of a pattern in the last week or so after a period of relative calm. In the aftermath of Russia’s claims that Ukraine targeted the Kremlin with its own drones and tried to assassinate Vladimir Putin, Moscow launched a wave of kamikaze drones mainly targeting Kyiv and Odesa.
While all of the 18 drones launched against the Ukrainian capital were reported shot down, three drones landed in the area of a school dormitory building in Odesa although there were no casualties reported. Tail fragments for two of the drones had “for Moscow” and “for the Kremlin” scrawled on them.
Finland has received a diplomatic note from Russia complaining over vandalism at a Russian consulate on the demilitarised Aland island located in the Baltic Sea between Finland and Sweden, the Finnish foreign ministry said on Thursday.
Finland’s foreign ministry said the incident is “regrettable” and that the damage consists of the consulate mailbox being torn down, and a window being broken after a bottle of beer was thrown at the consulate.
There continues to be intermittent air alerts in Ukraine. Kherson oblast has just declared another one.
Tamara Cohen, political correspondent at Sky News, has tweeted that she has spoken to a senior UK defence source about the Kremlin drone incident. She reports they told her:
Anything is possible, but there is no benefit to Ukraine doing it, there is no military advantage, everyone knows Putin doesn’t stay in the Kremlin and the motives are all really in Russia’s favour – the public to rally round; excuse for more random and reckless bombardments; trying to gain sympathy for Russia over Ukraine.
The Ukrainian president, Volodymyr Zelenskiy, will have a meeting at the international criminal court (ICC) in The Hague during a visit to the Netherlands on Thursday, the court has said without giving further detail, Reuters reports.
In March, the ICC issued an arrest warrant for the Russian president, Vladimir Putin, for alleged deportation of children from Ukraine, a war crime.
Zelenskiy arrived in the Netherlands overnight after his visit to Helsinki yesterday.
The Guardian reporter Peter Beaumont is in southern Ukraine and visited Kherson on Tuesday. Today he managed to talk to two residents in the city who described a night of very heavy shelling. Peter says:
When we were in Kherson on Tuesday there was intermittent shelling. Because the city fell without a fight at the beginning of the war, most of the damage you see has been from Russian shelling since the liberation on 11 November.
To give a sense of what it’s like, the most dangerous areas have been close to the Dnieper River, which has recently been in a red zone forbidden to journalists and non-locals.
While there were people moving around the city on Tuesday, that’s changed with residents telling us they plan to stay indoors even before the strict weekend long curfew that starts tomorrow night. If people are going out at all it is to stock up on food and water.
Some people told us they were sleeping in their clothes to be ready to go to the shelters.
Andriy Vanin, 54, is a local camera operator, although he has been unemployed since the war started. Here’s what he had to say.
We live in the north of the city, as far from the river as you can get. We couldn’t sleep last night. Until 1am it was very noisy with a lot of shelling. After 1 there was a break and we tried to sleep, then at 4.30 m the Ukrainian artillery started shelling the Russian positions on the left bank.
Yesterday I had to go out around city I drive along city. I was near one of the places that was shelled. It felt like walking on a razor blade. Now I don’t want to leave the house.
From tomorrow night we’ll be under a strict curfew announced by the authorities. First thing is safety but we assume this has something to do with the counter offensive.
Right now it’s quiet in my district. We are going out to buy drinking water and bread. There’s a couple of small markets nearby but we are going do it fast, like in half an hour, because of the shelling.
I also spoke to Kateryna Symonova, who owned a bar before the war, and now works at the technical university.
It was really loud. We heard a lot bombing. Big and close and we could hear it all the time. It was bad enough that the whole apartment was shaking. We went down to basement for a time after it started at 10pm.
We assume they’ll start again today. Now they’re closing the city and I guess it means something big is coming. We have enough food and water and I’ve sent my parents out of Kherson, so it’s just me my husband.
Now even though the curfew doesn’t start until tomorrow evening, most people have decided to stay at home. It’s really scary to go outside. But it’s also really scary staying at home.
Anton Gerashchenko, the former deputy minister of internal affairs and a current adviser to the interior ministry, has posted to social media what he claims is a video clip of air defences in Ukraine being launched against the overnight drone attack.
The Guardian has not independently verified the location and timing of the video.
Russia’s state-owned news agency Tass has published overnight quotes from Anatoly Antonov, the Russian ambassador to the US. It quotes him as saying:
How would the Americans react if a drone hit the White House, the Capitol or the Pentagon? The answer for any politician, and even the layman, is obvious: the punishment will be tough and inevitable. Russia will respond to a daring and arrogant terrorist attack.
In criticism of the US response to the incident, he said Washington “did not find it possible to recognise the obvious – a terrorist act planned by the regime of Zelenskiy and an attempt on the life of the president of the Russian Federation”.
Putin is not thought to have been in the Kremlin at the time of the incident.
Antonov went on to say:
Blasphemous and deceitful were the theses that this terrorist attack was allegedly an ‘operation under a false flag’. That is, it was Russia itself that organised the provocation against the heart of our statehood?
The world remembers how, in 2001, the Russian president was the first to reach out to the American people, who were then subjected to a terrorist attack. Everything is forgotten. Today, the US defends Kyiv criminals.
Suspilne, Ukraine's state broadcaster, has this report on its Telegram channel for the partly occupied Donetsk region:
On the night of 4 May, the Russian military launched a rocket attack on Kramatorsk, damaging the building of the educational institution and nearby residential buildings. There are no dead or injured, reported the head of the Donetsk region Kirylenko.
Also, Avdiivka came under fire from artillery – the city was also hit by an air missile – houses and the territory of the enterprise were damaged.
During the past day, the Russian military shelled Kurakhivska, Kostyantynivska and other communities of Donetsk region. On 3 May, two residents were killed and nine others were injured in Donetsk region.
The claims have not been independently verified.
Here are some of the latest images sent to us from Ukraine over the news wires, showing Ukraine’s border guards in military exercises.
There’s been another night of substantial Russian missile attacks and drone attacks on Ukrainian cities, which has become something of a pattern in the last week or so after a period of relative calm. In the aftermath of Russia’s claims that Ukraine targeted the Kremlin with its own drones and tried to assassinate Vladimir Putin, Moscow launched a wave of kamikaze drones mainly targeting Kyiv and Odesa.
While all of the 18 drones launched against the Ukrainian capital were reported shot down, three drones landed in the area of a school dormitory building in Odesa although there were no casualties reported. Tail fragments for two of the drones had “for Moscow” and “for the Kremlin” scrawled on them.
If you’re just joining us, this is what happened overnight in Ukraine:
Ukrainian air defences said they downed 18 out of 24 kamikaze drones that Russia launched in a pre-dawn attack on Thursday. In a statement, Kyiv city administration said that all missiles and drones targeting the Ukrainian capital for the third time in four days, have been destroyed. No casualties were reported.
The US embassy in Ukraine has warned US citizens in the country of that there is an “ongoing heightened threat of missile attacks, including in Kyiv and Kyiv oblast”. It said, “In light of the recent uptick in strikes across Ukraine and inflammatory rhetoric from Moscow, the Department of State cautions US citizens of an ongoing heightened threat of missile attacks, including in Kyiv and Kyiv oblast.”
Russian emergency services extinguished the fire at a large oil refinery in Russia two hours after it was hit in a drone attack, TASS news agency reported early on Thursday. TASS said the incident occurred at the Ilsky refinery near the Black Sea port of Novorossiysk in the Krasnodar region. A day earlier, a fuel depot further to the west caught on fire near a bridge linking Russia’s mainland with the occupied Crimea peninsula.
Dutch media are reporting that Zelensky arrived at Amsterdam’s airport late Wednesday, with a trip to the international criminal court in The Hague on his agenda. Zelenskiy is expected to deliver a speech in The Hague entitled “No peace without justice for Ukraine”, according to public broadcaster NOS.
Zelenskiy has denied Russian claims that Ukraine was involved in a drone attack on the Kremlin that was intended to kill the Russian president, Vladimir Putin. The Ukrainian president said on Wednesday: “We don’t attack Putin, or Moscow, we fight on our territory and defend our towns and cities.” The Kremlin said on Wednesday that two drones had been used in the attack, but that they had been disabled by Russian defences. It has vowed to take retaliatory measures.
The Guardian’s Pjotr Sauer and Dan Sabbagh reported earlier that Volodymyr Zelenskiy has denied Russian claims that Ukraine was involved in a drone attack on the Kremlin that was intended to kill the Russian president, Vladimir Putin.
The Ukrainian president said on Wednesday: “We don’t attack Putin, or Moscow, we fight on our territory and defend our towns and cities.”
“We leave it to the tribunal,” he added.
The Kremlin said on Wednesday that two drones had been used in the attack, but that they had been disabled by Russian defences. It has vowed to take retaliatory measures.
The Kyiv city administration says that the only damage done by drones in the capital last night was to cars from falling debris.
“Debris fell on various streets around approximately 10 buildings. As a result of falling debris, parked cars (quantity to be determined) and road surface were partially damaged,” the administration wrote on Telegram.
More on this morning’s drone strikes, from Reuters:
Ukrainian air defences said they downed 18 out of 24 kamikaze drones that Russia launched in a pre-dawn attack on Thursday.
In a statement, Kyiv city administration said that all missiles and drones targeting the Ukrainian capital for the third time in four days, have been destroyed.
“The Russians have attacked Kyiv using Shahed loitering munitions and missiles, likely the ballistic type,” the administration said.
Out of 15 Shahed kamikaze drones fired at the Black Sea coastal city of Odesa, air defences destroyed 12, while three struck a university compound. There were no casualties, the Ukrainian southern military command said.
Russia has regularly bombarded Ukraine since October last year, striking at a variety of targets. The latest blasts were reported less than 24 hours after Kyiv said 21 people died in a Russian strike on the city of Kherson.
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2023-05-04 07:35:25Z
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