cruise missiles russia

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What to know about the long-range cruise missile Russia says it fired

Russian naval forces launched long-range cruise missiles on Tuesday evening from the waters off Sevastopol, a port city in Russia-held Crimea, according to expert analysis of video verified by The Washington Post.

Russia said the 3M-14 Kalibr cruise missile attack destroyed a major Ukrainian arsenal.

Understanding the weapons that have drawn the world’s attention since Russia’s invasion of Ukraine

A v ideo filmed by a witness from the Sevastopol waterfront on Tuesday shows at least four projectiles being fired from the water. Geolocation of the video by The Post shows the missiles appear to be traveling northwest, away from the city. As the narrator recites the date and location, the camera pans to show his surroundings.

“We thought it was a plane flying,” the narrator says. “It’s normal that planes fly here. But shooting is something serious.”

Additional video filmed around the same time shows eight flares with long tails that appear to be airborne missiles flying over the Black Sea. Both videos were verified by The Post.

Footage shared by the Russian defense ministry on social media shows large fireballs emanating from a warship where the ministry said Russian forces had fired Kalibr cruise missiles toward military assets in Orzhev, a village outside of the city of Rivne. Rivne is located more than 200 miles west of Kyiv and would be within the range a 3M-14 Kalibr missile could travel if it was fired from Sevastopol.

The tightly cropped video first shows multiple large explosions in succession above a ship, while someone off camera counts, “First, second, third, fourth.” The video then cuts to a wider view of a sunset where the long tails of the eight missiles are visible. The Post was not able to verify the location of this launch.

What you need to know about hypersonic missiles, which Biden says Russia used against Ukraine

Video reportedly of a Russian Project 21631 Buyan-M small missile ship launching 8 Kalibr-NK cruise missiles from near Sevastopol. https://t.co/GcWqUpoXLh pic.twitter.com/VvU3l5yYCK — Rob Lee (@RALee85) March 22, 2022

“As a result of the strike, a large depot of weapons and military equipment of the Ukrainian troops, including those received from Western countries, was destroyed,” a statement on the ministry’s Telegram channel said.

U.S. officials said they could not confirm that the weapons had been used. Ukrainian authorities have not confirmed the deployment of the missiles or the destruction of an arsenal near Rivne.

The Post could not independently verify Russia’s claim that a weapons depot had been destroyed.

Ian Williams, deputy director of the missile defense project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies, said he was nearly positive the videos showed the launch of 3M-14 Kalibr cruise missiles.

“These are Russia’s long-range naval sea-based cruise missiles, similar to the U.S. Tomahawk,” he told The Post in an email. “They use satellite navigation along with some onboard inertial guidance.”

“This was almost certainly launched by the Russian Black Sea Fleet,” Mark Cancian, senior adviser for the international security program at CSIS, said in an email. Kalibr missiles are “at the high end of Russian capabilities,” he added. “Russia uses them to attack the highest priority targets. They seem to be doing more of that in western Ukraine. It may be part of an effort to attack strategic targets, that is, targets that matter in the long war.”

The 3M-14 or SS-N-30A cruise missile , commonly referred to as the Kalibr missile, can be fired from ships or submarines toward land targets. It can travel a maximum range of about 1,550 miles, according to the CSIS Missile Defense Project.

3M14 Kalibr

Stabilizers

20 feet, 4 inches

6 foot person for scale

Pop-out wings

Control fins

The missiles, designed to penetrate the air defenses of stationary ground targets, fly autonomously and largely horizontally at low altitude, along preprogrammed waypoints. Their route can be updated midcourse via satellite communication. Cruise missiles can be highly accurate compared to ballistic missiles.

Low altitude

flight path,

by satellite

Approximate 1,550 mile range

Not to scale

3M14T Kalibr

flight path, parallel to

Low altitude flight path, parallel to ground

Tracks terrain

during flight

Route can be updated through satellites

The standard 3M14T land-attack missile reportedly contains a nearly 1,000-pound high explosive warhead. It is often used to attack storage facilities, command posts, seaports and airports.

Russia stuck barracks in the southern port city of Mykolaiv with a Kalibr missile earlier this month, the New York Times reported , killing at least eight Ukrainian soldiers who had been sleeping there. The region’s governor said at least 19 others were wounded.

A Pentagon official said at a background briefing Wednesday that the United States still assessed that Russia has “the vast majority” of its inventory of surface-to-air missiles and cruise missiles.

Russia first used the SS-N-30A Kalibr missile in Syria in October 2015, when it launched 26 missiles from Russian naval vessels in the Caspian Sea, at forces fighting the government of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Dan Lamothe contributed to this report.

Country: Russia

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Russia Isn’t Going to Run Out of Missiles

Photo: CHRISTOF STACHE/AFP/Getty Images

Commentary by Ian Williams

Published June 28, 2023

Long-range missile strikes against Ukrainian cities and infrastructure have been a prominent and persistent aspect of the Kremlin’s war against Ukraine. Earlier this year, the CSIS report Putin’s Missile War found that Russian missile attacks in 2022 had caused major damage to Ukraine’s economy and infrastructure but had failed to achieve the kind of decisive strategic effects that Moscow had likely sought. Into 2023, Russia has persisted in expending expensive, long-range missiles in regular attacks against a variety of civilian and military objects across Ukraine. The focus of these strikes regularly shifts and their intensity has ebbed and flowed, as has the quality of employed munitions.

However, Russia’s continued strike campaign in 2023 has made one thing quite clear: it is unrealistic to expect Russia to ever “run out” of missiles. Despite sanctions and export controls, it appears likely that Russia will be able to produce or otherwise acquire the long-range strike capacity necessary to inflict significant damage upon Ukraine’s people, economy, and military. Ukraine’s air defenses have performed remarkably well under challenging circumstances. Nevertheless, the Russian military has continued trying to identify gaps and seams to exploit to gain an advantage.

There is no one-off fix for this problem. Sanctions and export controls can, at most, limit the quantity and quality of strike assets Russia can acquire. The most reliable counter is sustained Western support for Ukrainian air defense forces for the duration of the conflict. The continued, steady provision of air defenses into the foreseeable future will save lives, reduce costs of future reconstruction, and help end the war more quickly by enabling Ukraine’s counteroffensive in the face of superior Russian airpower. Moreover, providing air defenses has also forced Western countries to scale up production of these systems, which could have long-term benefits for Western defense readiness.

Russia’s Latest Assault

In May, Russia renewed its long-range drone and missile attacks on Ukrainian cities. This surge in activity came after a relative period of lull in March and April, following Moscow’s furious yet unsuccessful strike campaign aimed at collapsing Ukraine’s electric grid last winter. Unlike that singularly focused effort, Russia’s recent spate of missile and drone attacks since May has been aimed at a seemingly broader and less predictable target set.

For instance, Russia has used some of its most advanced and expensive missiles in a failed bid to destroy one of Ukraine’s U.S.-German-provided Patriot batteries protecting Kyiv. Moscow likely believed that the prompt destruction of a Patriot battery—one of the costliest weapon systems Ukraine has received—would discourage continued Western military aid. However, this line of attack backfired as the Patriot battery survived nearly unscathed. The Patriot battery reportedly shot down 100 percent of the 34 Iskander and Kinzhal quasi-ballistic missiles Russia has fired at Kyiv as of June 28, weapons that Moscow had once touted as impervious to air and missile defenses.

In other instances, assessing what Russia has been aiming at has been more challenging since most projectiles get shot down. Targets, though, seem to include a mix of critical infrastructure, command and control installations, and other military and civilian targets. Kyiv has borne the brunt of Russia’s latest assault. Still, Russia has, in more recent weeks, expanded its scope to other areas, possibly looking to exploit areas of Ukraine where air defense is thinner. On June 10, Russia struck a Ukrainian air base in Poltava with a complex barrage of eight ballistic and cruise missiles and as many as 35 Shahed-36 one-way attack munitions. Ukraine says it shot down only two cruise missiles, while 15 Shahed-136s made it through Ukrainian defenses. Russia has not carried out a major missile attack on a Ukrainian air base since the early months of the war, and likely that the area lacked the same level of air defense as Kyiv. Poltava probably lacks protection from Patriot, currently Ukraine’s only defense against ballistic missiles.

As with much of Russia’s air campaign against Ukraine, civilians have suffered the most. In many cases, damage to civilian areas has resulted from falling debris from intercepted missiles. Although much less destructive than allowing a missile to strike its target, debris from intercepts can still kill, maim, start fires, and otherwise damage property. In other instances, Russia appears to be attacking civilians directly. On June 13, Russia launched a cruise missile attack against Kryvyi Rih . At least one of the four missiles that got through Ukraine’s defenses struck an apartment building, killing 11.

Overall, the performance of Ukraine’s air defenses has steadily improved since the start of the war, particularly against Russian cruise missiles. Throughout much of Russia’s winter campaign against Ukraine’s electric grid, Ukraine’s Air Force reported intercepting around 70–80 percent of Russian cruise missiles. Since May, Ukraine has reported intercepting around 90 percent of Russian cruise missiles and drones (see below). Ukraine has reported downing nearly 80 percent of air and ground-launched ballistic missile attacks nationwide and 100 percent of ballistic missiles attacking areas where ballistic missile defenses (Patriot) are present. Ukraine only has two Patriot batteries. As such, most of Ukraine lacks any protection from ballistic missiles, as shown by the June 10 Iskander-M strike in Poltava and the June 22 Kh-47 strikes around Dnipro, which Ukraine could not stop.

While lacking the focus of prior phases of Russia’s long-range strike campaign, Russia’s current objectives seem primarily aimed at keeping Ukraine off balance during its counteroffensive operations in the South, to force Ukraine to divert air defense capacity to defend its cities. Given the limited supply of Ukrainian air defenses, a generalized and unpredictable strike campaign forces Ukraine to make difficult tradeoffs between defending its cities and critical infrastructure and providing thicker air defense for its troops on the front lines.

SHORAD Concerns

As Ukraine’s spring counteroffensive has gotten underway, observers are concerned that Ukraine is facing a gap in short-range air defenses (SHORAD) for its advancing troops. Russia’s use of attack helicopters like the Ka-52 armed with laser-guided 9K121 “Vikhr” missiles has been of particular concern to attack advancing Ukrainian armor. These missiles have a range of upwards of 12 kilometers, outside the range of many of Ukraine’s SHORAD systems like Strela, Stinger, StarStreak, and Igla variants. Ukraine’s medium-range air defenses, like IRIS-T, Buk, and NASAMs, are stretched between frontline duty and defending rear areas against long-range attacks. UK Defence Intelligence recently noted that Russia had deployed 20 additional attack helicopters to Berdyansk, and that “in the constant contest between aviation measures and countermeasures,” Russia had temporarily gained the upper hand.

Ukrainian Air Defense Performance by Threat Type, May 1–June 26, 2023

It is unclear how long Russia will be able to maintain this advantage, however. Ukraine already seems to be adapting, claiming to have shot down six Ka-52s and one Mi-24 attack helicopter since June 16. Moreover, Wagner forces shot down as many as seven additional Russian helicopters during its recent mutiny, including one Ka-52. To be sure, Russia’s attack helicopters are not a plentiful asset. Russia started the war with around 150 Ka-52s. It is doubtful that all of these were mission capable. In October 2022, UK Defence Intelligence estimated Russia to have had no more than 90 Ka-52s in service at the war’s commencement. Based on visual analysis by independent observers and reports from the Ukrainian Air Force, Russia has lost as many as 60 Ka-52s since the start of the war from enemy fire as well as accidents. The Ka-52 problem is not insurmountable, and Russia’s attack helicopter force cannot sustain the rate of losses they have sustained over the past week. However, ensuring that Ukraine has adequate medium- and short-range air defenses to support its counteroffensive over the coming months will be vital to its success. Moreover, additional long-range strike assets, such as Army Tactical Missile System (ATACMS) ballistic missiles, would enable Ukraine to better target the bases Russia is using to house and maintain its attack helicopters, many of which are within the borders of Ukraine.

Russia’s Evolving Strike Complex

As early as March 2022, there was much conjecture that Russia’s supply of precision-guided missiles was dwindling . These reports may not have been entirely off the mark. Russia probably did quickly expend the portion of its long-range missile that it had initially allocated to its “special military operation.” Nevertheless, Russia maintained a steady drumbeat of missile strikes against Ukraine, likely by pulling munitions allocated to other theaters and drawing down its strategic reserves. Moreover, Russia has repurposed various surface-to-air and anti-ship missiles for land attack roles. Russia has also continued to manufacture missiles throughout the war, and evidence suggests that most (possibly all) Russian cruise missiles it has in its current inventory come from postwar production.

The exhaustion of prewar missile stockpiles has impacted the composition of current Russian strike salvos. Compared with previous phases of Russia’s air war, the composition of Russian missile attacks has trended away from high-end missile systems like cruise missiles toward cheaper, less capable “low-end” systems like Shahed-136 one-way attack munitions (see below). In the first three months of 2023, during the tail end of Russia’s strike campaign against Ukraine’s electric grid, Shahed-136s accounted for around 40 percent of long-range projectiles fired at Ukraine. Since April, 61 percent of long-range munitions Russia has employed have been Shahed-136 one-way attack munitions. Compared to cruise and ballistic missiles, Shahed-136 are generally easier to shoot down and more vulnerable to cheaper defenses like the German-made Flakpanzer Gepard and other gun-based systems. The Shahed-136’s warhead weight is also only between that of a cruise missile like Kh-101, and therefore causes less damage when they do make it through defenses.

However, the decline in the quality of Russian long-range strike salvos is unlikely to continue. Rather, the overall composition of Russian strike packages will likely level off as Russian missile use becomes fully tethered to how many missiles it can produce. But it is improbable that Russian production of higher-end cruise and ballistic missiles will ever fall to zero. Despite Western sanctions and export controls of key microelectronic components, Russia has been able to find workarounds to continue producing missiles. In May, Ukrainian intelligence estimated that Russia currently manufactures around 60 cruise missiles, five Iskander ballistic missiles, and two Kinzhals monthly. In June, President Zelensky noted that Ukraine continues to find Western-made microelectronic components amongst the wrecks of Russian missiles. These components are likely finding their way into Russia via friendly third parties such as China.

The United States and Europe can and should seek ways to further restrict the flow of dual-use tech components to Russia. It is, however, unrealistic to expect they will be able to completely deprive Russia of the components it needs to manufacture missiles. Sanctions and export controls have never prevented proliferation by a determined state, let alone one with Russia’s size and economic reach. What they can do is make it harder and more expensive, which would limit the number of missiles it can produce. Regardless of how many missiles the Kremlin produces today, it wishes it could make more. Export controls can help limit that potential.

But the upshot is that Russia will continue having the capacity to build missiles and drones and will continue to fire them at Ukraine. This reality will not change until the war ends. Meanwhile, active air defense remains the most reliable counter to Russian missile attacks, requiring continued support and replenishment from Ukraine’s international partners.

Composition of Russian Missile Attacks on Ukraine, January 1–March 31, 2023

Composition of Russian Missile Attacks on Ukraine, April 1–June 22, 2023

Folks Are Getting It

The good news is that Ukraine’s partners seem to understand the air defense imperative and are responding. Ukraine’s most recent military aid packages have been heavy on air defenses.

Since May, the United States announced it would supply Ukraine’s Armed Forces with additional rounds for NASAMS and Patriot, Avenger air defense and Stinger missiles, and HAWK air defense systems. The United States is also supplying Ukraine with older AIM-7 Sparrow missiles, which have been made compatible with Ukraine’s Buk M2 systems, for which Ukraine has ample launchers though few remaining interceptor missiles.

On June 15, the United Kingdom announced a new multinational fund that would be used to procure “hundreds of short and medium range air defense systems” for Ukraine, noting these deliveries would consist “largely of Soviet-era missiles.” The United Kingdom had also announced in mid-May that it would provide additional air defenses to Ukraine, though it did not specify the type.

French president Macron also recently announced that a French/Italian-provided SAMP/T system is now active in Ukraine, protecting “key installations and lives.” Germany delivered the second of four promised IRIS-T SLM air defense systems in April, along with an additional TRML 4D radar. Berlin also announced on June 24 that it plans to provide Ukraine with 45 more Gepard Flakpanzer systems, more than doubling the number Ukraine currently operates.

These contributions to Ukraine, while reducing national stockpiles of munitions in the short term, have the added benefit of bolstering the production lines of several key air defense systems. Having warm production lines for these complex systems could boost U.S. and allied defense readiness in the long term over and above the risks of near-term drawdowns.

For instance, the U.S. Army expects Stinger production to rise by 50 percent by 2025. As part of that ramp-up, at least one critical component of the Stinger has been redesigned in such a way as to overcome current supply chain issues. The United States is also increasing the production of Patriot systems. There are also significant increases in NASAMS production, and the United Kingdom recently announced it was restarting production of its Starstreak air defense system.

No Permanent Fix

Looking ahead, there is no simple solution to the Russian missile problem. Russia will continue to produce and acquire missiles and one-way attack munitions and use them to target Ukraine. Sanctions and export control can make this harder and costlier for the Russians, but they will not stop them. As long as the war continues, Ukraine must maintain a robust air and missile defense, which will require steady support from the United States and its many other international partners.

To this end, Western defense industrial capacity for everything from air defense interceptors to precision-guided munitions needs to be scaled up and new supply chains built. This process will not only help the United States maintain the steady support that Ukraine needs to win the war as quickly as possible, but it will also leave the United States and its allies in a stronger position to deter and defeat future threats.

Ian Williams is a fellow in the International Security Program and deputy director of the Missile Defense Project at the Center for Strategic and International Studies in Washington, D.C.

Commentary is produced by the Center for Strategic and International Studies (CSIS), a private, tax-exempt institution focusing on international public policy issues. Its research is nonpartisan and nonproprietary. CSIS does not take specific policy positions. Accordingly, all views, positions, and conclusions expressed in this publication should be understood to be solely those of the author(s).

© 2024 by the Center for Strategic and International Studies. All rights reserved.

Ian Williams

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Russia-Ukraine War Russia Fires Scores of Missiles While Ramping Up Winter Offensive

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• Kyiv region A Ukrainian air defense soldier in the Kyiv region. Emile Ducke for The New York Times
• Komyshuvakha Damage to residential homes. Reuters
• Kyiv Sheltering in a metro station. Emile Ducke for The New York Times
• Bucha Cleaning up debris. Emile Ducke for The New York Times
• Kyiv Students attend class while sheltering in a subway station. Reuters
• Kyiv Anti-tank defenses in the suburbs. Emile Ducke for The New York Times
• Bakhmut A Ukrainian soldier amid debris. Yasuyoshi Chiba/Agence France-Presse — Getty Images
• Lviv Housing for displaced Ukrainians. Roman Baluk/Reuters
• Donetsk region A Ukrainian soldier firing toward Russian positions. Yevhenii Zavhorodnii/Reuters
• Borodianka Svitlana Bondarenko at the site where a friend was killed by an airstrike. Lynsey Addario for The New York Times
• Hostomel A damaged residential building. Emile Ducke for The New York Times
• Pokrovsk A family waiting for transportation to a train for evacuation. Marko Djurica/Reuters

Russia fires missiles and drones in waves to evade air defense systems.

KYIV, Ukraine — Russia targeted Ukraine’s already battered infrastructure with drones, rockets and cruise missiles on Friday, raining fire on cities around the country as President Volodymyr Zelensky wrapped up a push in Europe for more, faster support from Kyiv’s allies.

On the ground, Russia has been ramping up the pace of its winter offensive, Ukrainian officials say, pouring troops and equipment into eastern Ukraine to try to swallow up new territory as the first anniversary of the war approaches and Kyiv waits for more powerful weapons from the West.

Military analysts have said that Russia has made small tactical gains over the past week — often at great cost — but as of Friday morning there was no evidence of a major breakthrough despite the heavy fighting.

The Ukrainian Air Force described Friday’s assault as a “massive attack” and said that it had involved 71 cruise missiles and seven Iranian-made drones. Ukraine said in a statement that it had shot down 61 of the cruise missiles and five of the drones.

Ukrainian officials maintained that two of the Russian missiles had crossed the airspace of Romania, a NATO country, even as Bucharest rejected the claim . Mr. Zelensky, who repeated the assertion, condemned the attacks and used the episode as an opportunity to rally his country’s allies.

“Their targets were civilians, civilian infrastructure,” Mr. Zelensky, who was traveling back to Ukraine after a stop in Poland, said in a video statement. He added: “This is terror that can and must be stopped — stopped by the world.”

Since October, Russia has launched more than a dozen major strikes on Ukraine’s energy facilities, as well as many smaller attacks, in a campaign to impair the power supply and leave civilians without power, heat and light during the winter.

The full extent of the damage of the strikes on Friday was not immediately clear, but energy infrastructure was hit in six regions of the country, according to Ukraine’s energy minister, Herman Galushchenko.

“Emergency shutdowns have been introduced in many regions,” he said in a statement, adding that energy workers were racing to restore supply. The state-owned power utility, Ukrenergo, confirmed damage to several high-voltage infrastructure sites in the eastern, western and southern regions of Ukraine.

Over Kyiv, the capital, Ukrainian fighter jets raced across the sky to intercept inbound missiles, and air defense systems thundered. Ten missiles were shot down over the city, and power transmission lines were damaged, according to the mayor, Vitali Klitschko. He said engineers were working to restore the lines.

Russia also launched a large attack of nearly three dozen S-300 anti-aircraft missiles from Belgorod in Russia and the occupied city of Tokmak in southern Ukraine, toward targets in Kharkiv and Zaporizhzhia. Ukraine’s air defense system cannot shoot down the anti-aircraft missiles, the Air Force said.

In southern Ukraine, Anatolii Kurtiev, the secretary of the Zaporizhzhia City Council, said that at least 17 missile strikes had been reported in less than an hour. It was the highest rate of missile attacks the city has encountered since the start of the full-scale invasion nearly a year ago, he said. The extent of the damage and number of casualties were not yet known, he said early Friday in a statement.

Four missiles were also shot down around the southern city of Kryvyi Rih, including three within the city limits, the local authorities said.

In the northeastern city of Kharkiv, at least 10 explosions were reported overnight, Oleh Syniehubov, the head of the regional administration, said in a statement. They appeared to be aimed at critical infrastructure, but the scale of the damage was not immediately clear.

Mr. Zelensky this week made a whirlwind European visit — only his second trip outside the country since the war began — pleading in London, Paris and Brussels for more and heavier weapons to fend off Russia’s new offensive.

— Marc Santora

When alarms sound, Ukraine’s air defense soldiers don’t take shelter. They head for open spaces.

KYIV REGION, Ukraine — When air-raid alarms sound, most Ukrainian soldiers and civilians move to take shelter in hallways, basements or bunkers.

But air defense soldiers, who are deployed in a ring around the capital, Kyiv, seek wide open spaces, such as farm fields or meadows. They head out in four-wheel-drive trucks, searching for 360-degree views, as a radar station sweeps the sky for incoming drones, cruise and ballistic missiles.

“As soon as my station registers something, we see it in the system” on a computer map, said Capt. Andriy, a radar operator, who, like other members of his team, asked to be identified only by first name and rank. The coordinates are shared automatically with Ukraine’s air defense forces across the country.

Ukraine operates sophisticated, Western-provided air defense weapons, including German-made IRIS-T missiles and American and Norwegian NASAMS. But it also relies on mobile groups in trucks mounted with machine guns and carrying soldiers bearing shoulder-fired anti-aircraft missiles.

On Friday, those forces were on high alert. One group in the region around Kyiv drove into a field to be ready to shoot at drones or cruise missiles if needed, but no targets came within range.

“This morning three ballistic missiles flew by us, but they were too far to shoot down,” said Captain Andriy. He operates the radar for his air-defense group and uses a tablet computer showing missiles in flight throughout Ukraine, including those that might pass his machine gunners.

The small, mobile groups are mostly deployed against Iranian-made Shahed-136 attack drones, which arrive with the distinctive sound of a lawn mower. “Lately, they fly Shaheds at night,” Captain Andriy said. “It’s easy to locate them, but how can we shoot them down when we cannot see them?”

A private who operates the group’s .50 caliber, truck-mounted machine gun, was on duty in a snowy field on Friday through the pre-dawn hours after repeated air-raid warnings sounded. “I was cold all night and all day,” he said.

Another private, Oleksandr, was at the ready with a shoulder-fired missile. “I was on duty since midnight,” he said. But “I didn’t down anything.” Of the missiles streaking in toward Kyiv, he said, “they were too far away from me.”

Ukraine’s Air Force said it had shot down 61 of the 71 missiles Russia fired at Ukrainian cities and infrastructure sites on Friday. It said that at least one of the missiles was downed by a shoulder-fired missile launched by a small, mobile group of soldiers in southern Ukraine.

“We are learning,” Pvt. Oleksandr said. “We shoot down more these days.”

— Maria Varenikova

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Biden plans to visit Poland for the anniversary of the start of the war.

WASHINGTON — President Biden will visit Poland later this month for the one-year anniversary of Russia’s invasion of Ukraine and demonstrate the durability of the U.S. commitment to stand up to Vladimir V. Putin’s aggression.

Mr. Biden will make a three-day visit starting on Feb. 20, White House officials said on Friday, and is set to meet with President Andrzej Duda of Poland and leaders of other NATO allies.

“President Biden will deliver remarks ahead of the one-year anniversary of Russia’s brutal and unprovoked invasion of Ukraine, addressing how the United States has rallied the world to support the people of Ukraine as they defend their freedom and democracy, and how we will continue to stand with the people of Ukraine for as long as it takes,” said Karine Jean-Pierre, the White House press secretary.

White House officials declined to say whether Mr. Biden planned to make a visit to Ukraine while he was in the area as a way of underscoring American support for President Volodymyr Zelensky.

— Michael D. Shear

Russia’s renewed assault has disrupted Ukraine’s nuclear plants, a U.N. agency says.

Moscow’s renewed assault on Ukraine’s infrastructure directly or indirectly disrupted operations at all four of Ukraine’s nuclear power plants, the United Nations nuclear watchdog said on Friday, in a somber illustration of how vulnerable the facilities remain in the face of Russia’s war.

The watchdog, the International Atomic Energy Agency, said “instability in the electrical grid from the shelling” caused a reactor unit at the Khmelnytskyi plant in western Ukraine to shut down, and that the power output at the Rivne and South Ukraine plants was reduced as a precautionary measure.

At the fourth plant, Zaporizhzhia, this week’s “increased military activity” delayed a planned rotation of I.A.E.A. experts, the agency said. The agency has established a permanent presence at all of Ukraine’s nuclear facilities in hopes of reducing the risk of a nuclear accident.

The Zaporizhzhia plant, which has been shut down and is controlled by Russia, has faced significant damage from frontline fighting. The I.A.E.A.’s diplomatic effort to establish a demilitarized security zone around the plant has been slow going, though the leader of the agency, Rafael Mariano Grossi, said he remained “hopeful” after talks in Moscow this week.

The situation around the Zaporizhzhia plant, which is Europe’s largest nuclear complex, remained “volatile and unpredictable,” Mr. Grossi said in a statement . “The postponement of the planned rotation demonstrates all too clearly the need for urgent measures to protect the plant and the people working there,” he said.

The I.A.E.A. said all safety systems at the Khmelnytskyi plant, where a reactor was shut down on Friday, worked as expected. Still, the disruptions at Ukraine’s three operational plants, a significant source of the country’s power supply, worsened the difficulties the crippled energy grid already faced from months of relentless Russian attacks.

Friday’s renewed onslaught on the power plants, high-voltage facilities and transmission systems across the country triggered emergency power outages, according to Ukrenegro, the state-owned power utility. Damage assessments and restoration efforts were underway, it added.

— Anushka Patil

The next few months could be critical in the war. Here’s how each side might attack.

The war is at a possible turning point after months of slow-moving fighting. The New York Times mapped out what the critical next few months could look like: Where Russia and Ukraine are preparing to attack, what they want and what could stand in their way.

— Marc Santora ,  Josh Holder ,  Marco Hernandez and Andrew E. Kramer

The War’s Violent Next Stage

Both sides are preparing to attack after months of slow-moving fighting. Russia is moving first. Here’s how each side is trying to shape the critical next few months in Ukraine.

Romania says a Russian missile didn’t enter its airspace, countering a Ukrainian claim.

Romania, a NATO member, said on Friday that a Russian missile had come within 22 miles of its border but that it did not cross into the country’s territory, countering a claim made by the Ukrainian military.

Ukraine’s top military commander had said earlier in the day that two Russian missiles crossed into the airspace of Moldova and Romania before entering Ukraine and being directed at targets in the country.

Although Russian missiles have been reported over Moldovan air space during the war, it would have been the first such instance of a Russian missile entering Romanian airspace. Such a violation would risk inflaming tensions between NATO and Moscow.

Romania’s defense ministry said in a statement that when a missile was detected near the north of the country’s territory, two of its fighter jets that were conducting drills under NATO command were redirected to the area, but that they resumed their original mission once the situation became clear.

Even after the Romanian statement, President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine repeated the claim that Russian missiles had flown through Romania’s airspace in addition to Moldova’s and said it was “proof that terror does not know and will never know any borders.”

“These missiles are a challenge to NATO’s collective security,” he said in a video message released on Friday afternoon.

Several hours later, Ukraine’s Air Force continued to insist that radar data would show two Russian missiles crossing into Romanian airspace. “There is radar data — there are means of objective control,” Yuriy Ihnat, the Air Force spokesman, said at a news conference. “Undoubtedly, NATO member countries were watching this situation,” he said, adding that he believed more information would emerge to confirm Ukraine’s account of the events.

NATO declined to comment on the episode. Moldova’s foreign ministry confirmed that the missiles had passed over its airspace, and said it had summoned the Russian ambassador to discuss the incident. “We strongly reject the recent unfriendly actions and statements in relation to the Republic of Moldova, which is absolutely unacceptable by our people,” Daniel Voda, a spokesman for the ministry, said in a statement,

The missiles involved in the incident were part of a broader Russian assault that featured dozens of drones, rocket and cruise missiles aimed at critical Ukrainian infrastructure across the country.

Russia has previously fired drones and missiles over Moldova into Ukraine, prompting diplomatic protests from the government there. Debris from a Russian missile shot down by Ukrainian air defenses landed in a border village in Moldova in October.

Since Russia launched its full-scale invasion of Ukraine nearly a year ago, there has been concern that the conflict could escalate either by design or by accident.

In November, when an explosion in Poland near the Ukrainian border killed two people , Ukrainian officials were quick to claim that it was the result of a Russian rocket. When it was determined to instead be a Ukrainian air-defense missile, fears eased over the prospect that NATO would become more deeply embroiled in the war.

Western officials also made the findings of that investigation public, given that Russia and NATO both say that they do not want to engage in a direct war with each other. Although NATO members have sent military aid to Ukraine, both sides also have made some effort to keep the war from spilling over into neighboring countries.

On Friday, Valery Zaluzhny, the commander in chief of Ukraine’s Armed Forces, said in a statement that two Kalibr cruise missiles fired from the Black Sea had crossed into Moldovan airspace at 10:18 a.m. and then crossed Romanian airspace 15 minutes later. He said the missiles had then made their way back into Ukraine after crossing at a juncture where the three countries’ borders meet.

Matina Stevis-Gridneff contributed reporting.

— Marc Santora and Monika Pronczuk

Brazil says it won’t be sending weapons to Ukraine, despite a U.S. push for more support for Kyiv.

President Biden welcomed Brazil’s new president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, at the White House on Friday for a summit that was mostly about areas of cooperation between the countries. But when it comes to Ukraine, the two leaders disagree.

While Mr. Lula has condemned Russia’s invasion of Ukraine, he has also suggested in the past that President Volodymyr Zelensky of Ukraine and NATO share some blame for the war, and he has refused to sell weapons to Ukraine in an effort to maintain neutrality.

Instead, Mr. Lula wants to try to help mediate peace in the conflict, while Mr. Biden is far more supportive of Ukraine, with little expectation that President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia has any interest in peace.

“We need to find interlocutors who can sit with President Putin to show him the mistake he made to invade Ukraine’s territory, and we have to show Ukraine that they need to talk more so we can enda this war,” Mr. Lula said in an interview with CNN broadcast on Friday.

In the interview, Mr. Lula said that he would not sell weapons or ammunition to Ukraine to avoid getting involved. “I don’t want to join the war,” he said. “I want to end the war.” He added that in his meeting with Mr. Biden, “I don’t know what he’s going to say to me, but what I’m going to say to him: It is necessary to build a set of countries to negotiate peace.”

John Kirby, the White House national security spokesman, said in a separate interview with CNN that the U.S. government believed Mr. Lula’s view did not reflect the current state of the war. “We don’t see any impetus right now to get to the negotiating table,” he said, “so that’s why we are focused on making sure Ukraine has everything they need to be successful on the battlefield, so if and when President Zelensky says, ‘I’m ready to sit down,’ he can do so with some wind at his back.”

Mr. Kirby said that the White House would continue to push for support for Ukraine, but that it respected sovereign nations like Brazil to make their own decisions. “The whole issue at stake in Ukraine, when you get right down to it, is about sovereignty,” he said. “How hypocritical would it be for the United States, in that sort of frame, to be browbeating or tussling with other countries to give more, do more, say more?”

Neither leader raised the issue of Ukraine when news cameras were in the Oval Office, saving any discussion of it for private meetings.

Brazil’s position on the Russia-Ukraine war is complicated by its reliance on Russia for about a quarter of its fertilizer imports , which are crucial to its enormous agriculture industry.

Brazil is Russia’s largest buyer of fertilizer. In 2019, Brazil spent roughly $1.9 billion on chemicals from Russia. Fertilizer is big business for Russia, but is still dwarfed by its oil and gas exports.

Political analysts have said that if disagreement over Ukraine becomes a major part of the talks, it has the potential to spoil a summit that should be an easy foreign-policy win for both countries.

“Even though these are two leaders with a lot in common, their underlying world views and national interests are quite different, and Ukraine is a big one,” said Brian Winter, a writer and analyst who tracks Latin America for the Americas Society/Council of the Americas, a group that pushes free trade in the Americas. “Primarily because of that issue, I do think there’s potential for both sides to walk away from this meeting with a somewhat sour taste.”

Peter Baker contributed reporting.

— Jack Nicas

The prime minister of Moldova, a Ukrainian neighbor rattled by the war, steps down.

The pro-Western prime minister of Moldova, a troubled Eastern European nation that borders Ukraine, resigned on Friday, buffeted by a severe energy crisis, soaring inflation and errant missiles as a result of the war raging next door .

Natalia Gavrilita, an economist, had been prime minister since 2021, when she took charge of the government after elections gave a strong majority in Parliament to pro-Western politicians. Officials and analysts said that her departure would not push the former Soviet republic back into Moscow’s orbit or change its aspirations to join the European Union.

“This is not a crisis, just a normal reshuffle of the government,” Nicu Popescu, Moldova’s foreign minister, said in a telephone interview. He said that a “big part” of the prime minister’s team would stay in their jobs.

More important in deciding Moldova’s direction is the country’s president, Maia Sandu, a Harvard-educated former World Bank official who was elected to a four-year term in 2020 on a platform of aligning the country, Europe’s poorest, closely with the West. The incumbent president she defeated, Igor Dodon, had been openly endorsed by President Vladimir V. Putin of Russia.

Ms. Sandu’s allies dominate Parliament, which is likely to approve any new prime minister she nominates. She tapped Dorin Recean , a former interior minister of Moldova, as the new government leader later on Friday.

Russia, infuriated by Moldova’s Westward tilt under President Sandu, has sought to reverse that course by choking off supplies of natural gas and stoking public discontent through local allies like Ilan M. Shor , a convicted fraudster and fugitive billionaire who has used his money to pay street protesters.

Along with economic problems exacerbated by an energy squeeze across Europe as the continent pushes to wean itself off Russia’s fossil fuels as punishment for Moscow’s invasion of Ukraine, Moldova has been unsettled over the past year by wayward Russian rockets landing on its territory.

On Friday, shortly before Ms. Gavrilita announced her resignation, a Russian missile fired from the Black Sea flew over Moldova on its way to Ukraine, the latest in a series of violations of Moldovan air space.

Announcing her decision at a news conference on Friday, the departing prime minister said that her government had faced an unexpected cascade of “crises caused by Russian aggression in Ukraine.” But Ms. Gavrilita said: “I believe that we will be able to make it through all the difficulties and challenges.”

— Andrew Higgins

The U.S. announces sanctions aimed at Russian influence and corruption in Bulgaria’s energy sector.

The United States announced on Friday that it would impose sanctions on five current and former Bulgarian officials, including former finance and energy ministers, accusing them of corruption that undermined the country’s democracy and helped keep it dependent on Russian energy.

The Treasury Department’s action was taken in support of Bulgaria as a NATO ally “in its fight against both entrenched corruption and Russian influence,” the department’s undersecretary for terrorism and financial intelligence, Brian E. Nelson, said a statement .

Bulgaria long had a close relationship with Russia, the world’s third-largest producer of oil, and was heavily reliant on its natural gas exports, but their relations deteriorated after Bulgaria joined Western nations in opposing Russia’s invasion of Ukraine.

Corruption and Russian involvement in Bulgaria’s energy sector was a particular focus of the Treasury’s action on Friday. Among those the sanctions targeted is Rumen Stoyanov Ovcharov, a former member of Bulgaria’s Parliament who served as the country’s energy minister in the late 1990s and mid-2000s.

Mr. Ovcharov “repeatedly engaged in corrupt energy contracts with Russian energy companies,” the Treasury Department’s statement said. He and two former chief executives of Bulgaria’s only nuclear power plant, Aleksandar Hristov Nikolov and Ivan Kirov Genov, accepted bribes and profited from diverting the plant's contracts to their own business interests in arrangements that continued through at least 2020, according to the Treasury.

Nikolay Simeonov Malinov, a Bulgarian politician who leads a pro-Russian lobby group known as the Russophiles National Movement, was sanctioned for judicial bribery. Mr. Malinov was barred from international travel after being charged with spying for Russian-backed interests in 2019. The Treasury said he had bribed a Bulgarian judge to allow him to travel to Russia to personally receive from President Vladimir V. Putin a medal and an award of 2.5 million Russian rubles, about $40,000 at the time.

Vladislav Ivanov Goranov, a former finance minister of Bulgaria, was also placed under sanctions for corruption, as were several entities controlled by him and Mr. Malinov, including the Russophiles National Movement.

All the sanctions were imposed under the Global Magnitsky Act, which allows the United States to punish foreign officials with economic penalties for corruption and human rights violations. The United Kingdom on Friday imposed sanctions on three Bulgarians accused of corruption whom the U.S. had penalized in 2021.

Putin used a secret decree to pardon an ex-inmate who joined Russia’s war effort, a document shows.

A secret pardon granted by President Vladimir V. Putin to a Russian prisoner who fought in Ukraine shows that the former inmate received clemency on the day he left jail to join the war, an act that rights activists say short-circuits the existing legal process.

The document, a copy of a prison release certificate reviewed by The New York Times, is the first published evidence of what activists say is a mass pardon campaign instituted by the Kremlin to entice tens of thousands of prisoners to enter battle.

Such recruits became a crucial component of Russia’s war effort in recent months. The Wagner mercenary group has used such fighters to unleash waves of suicidal attacks intended to wear down Ukrainian positions along the heavily fortified eastern front, where Russian forces have been making slow gains, including on the key city of Bakhmut.

The founder of the mercenary group, Yevgeny V. Prigozhin, a Russian businessman who is an ally of Mr. Putin’s, appeared in prison recruitment videos last year, promising freedom for those who signed on. In early January, Wagner began releasing videos of former inmates receiving what appeared to be pardon papers after finishing their contracts. Analysts and rights activists said the videos were an effort to raise Wagner’s flagging recruitment numbers. (Mr. Prigozhin said on Thursday that Wagner would no longer recruit fighters in Russian prisons , though he did not specify why.)

The pardon videos immediately raised questions about whether the recruiting was circumventing the legal process. Existing pardon rules typically required an extended consultation process among multiple government agencies. And only Mr. Putin, as president, can pardon prisoners. In 2021, he pardoned just six people, according to the Kremlin.

The prison release certificate reviewed by The Times was issued by Russia’s Justice Ministry. It says that the inmate was freed in late August by “a pardon decree issued by the president of the Russian Federation.”

The former prisoner received the certificate this month while recuperating from a mine injury in an infirmary in southern Russia. The Times redacted his personal details to protect him against retaliation.

The Times obtained the certificate from Yana Gelmel, a Russian prisoner’s rights lawyer. The inmate’s mother had previously confirmed to The Times his identity and Wagner contract. His personal details and prison sentences also match those found in Russia’s publicly available legal database.

Ms. Gelmel said the issuing of such certificates dealt a major blow to the vestiges of legality in Russia by erasing the rights of crime victims to compensation.

“They can kill a man, they can rob, and then they can go to war and walk free,” she said of former inmates who had received pardons. “This is complete impunity.”

The Kremlin has not published any pardon decrees this year, but Mr. Putin’s spokesman and pro-government rights campaigners have implied in recent weeks that Wagner fighters’ legal statuses could be a state secret.

“All these decrees are closed,” Eva Merkacheva, a member of Russia’s Kremlin-allied Human Rights Council, told the state news media in January. “We can’t see them.”

— Anatoly Kurmanaev and Ekaterina Bodyagina

Oil prices rise after a Kremlin official says Russia will cut production to counter sanctions.

Russia announced on Friday that it would cut its oil production next month by 500,000 barrels a day , or about 5 percent of its output — Moscow’s first substantive response to a wave of recently imposed sanctions on the country’s oil trade.

Oil prices jumped on the news, and by late afternoon in Europe the price of Brent crude, the international benchmark, was 2.5 percent higher on the day, around $86.30 a barrel. West Texas Intermediate rose similarly, briefly rising above $80 a barrel.

A rise in price may be exactly what Russia is seeking. The world’s third-largest producer of oil, Russia has been forced to sell its crude at a significant discount, estimated to be as much as 50 percent, to attract new buyers in Asia to make up for embargoes imposed in the European Union and elsewhere.

The cutback in production was announced by Alexander Novak, a deputy prime minister and Russia’s point man on energy. His statement was combative, repeating a refrain from Russian leaders that “we will not sell oil to those who directly or indirectly adhere to the principles of the price cap,” he told reporters, according to the Russian news agency Interfax.

But analysts said it appeared that Russia, which has done surprisingly well at maintaining production in recent months, was worried about the loss of oil revenue from restrictions placed on Russia’s oil trade by Western sanctions, including a price cap of $60 per barrel imposed in December.

“Russia might be feeling that more and more countries are going to start attempting to use the price cap scheme,” said Felix Todd, an analyst at Argus Media, a pricing data firm.

— Stanley Reed

Influence networks in Russia misled European users about the war in Ukraine, TikTok says.

Last summer, 1,704 TikTok accounts made a coordinated and covert effort to influence public discourse about the war in Ukraine, the company said on Thursday.

Nearly all the accounts were part of a single network operating out of Russia that pretended to be based in Europe and aimed its posts at Germans, Italians and Britons, the company said. The accounts used software to use local languages that amplified pro-Russia propaganda, attracting more than 133,000 followers before being discovered and removed by TikTok.

TikTok disclosed the networks on Thursday in an in-depth report that examined its handling of disinformation in Europe, where it has more than 100 million users, noting that conflict in Ukraine “challenged us to confront a complex and rapidly changing environment.”

— Tiffany Hsu

The situation around Kreminna in eastern Ukraine is ‘quite difficult,’ a Ukrainian official says.

Ukrainian forces on Friday battled advancing Russian forces in the pine forests near the city of Kreminna in eastern Ukraine and held increasingly precarious defensive positions in the frozen trenches and battered buildings around the ruined city of Bakhmut, according to Ukrainian officials and military analysts.

The pace of Russian operations continued to intensify, but Britain’s defense intelligence agency said that Kyiv was managing to broadly hold its defensive lines despite the onslaught.

Over the course of a year of fighting, Russian attempts to advance have rarely resulted in swift gains, instead playing out over weeks of grueling combat. As it adds more tanks, artillery and air support to a winter offensive that Ukrainian officials say is aimed at securing control of the entire Donbas region of eastern Ukraine, Moscow is once again trying to grind out territorial gains.

Some of the toughest fighting over the past week has been in an area around the city of Kreminna, a small but vital pocket of land in Donbas. There was no indication of any letup on Friday.

“It is quite difficult for our fighters, but they control the situation,” Serhiy Haidai, the head of the Luhansk regional military administration, said in a statement on Friday about Ukraine’s efforts to repel the Russian assault.

The Russian push in Kreminna also signaled that Moscow was trying to stretch Ukrainian forces, which have been straining to hold off Russia’s advance on Bakhmut, 30 miles to the south.

Russia continued to make slow progress in its effort to cut off Ukrainian troops defending the city of Bakhmut, Britain’s defense intelligence agency said on Friday . Bakhmut is a key target for Moscow, which sees it as important to its goal of driving farther west and attacking the Ukrainian stronghold at Kramatorsk.

As Ukrainian soldiers held their positions in trenches spread across hundreds of miles, Kyiv said its forces continued to target Russian staging areas deep behind the front line in an attempt to disrupt Moscow’s ability to sustain its campaign.

A mobile clinic is trying to restore medical services to villages once occupied by Russian forces.

For eight months, the village of Levkivka in eastern Ukraine was under occupation by Russian troops, who cut off roughly 300 residents from the outside world. There was no running water or power, and Russian soldiers would often snatch their cellphones and stomp on them, fearful that locals would betray their locations, residents said. The only medical care was provided by two village nurses, who braved the constant shelling to make house calls with limited supplies and medicine.

Ukrainian forces recaptured Levkivka in September, but medical care is still hard to come by. A truck, provided by the United Nations Population Fund and staffed with doctors from the city of Kharkiv, is seeking to change that. The vehicle travels around the region, part of a continuing Ukrainian government effort to bring a semblance of normalcy to once occupied villages in the east.

Levkivka, a village of tidy homes along the Siversky Donets River, is in a region mangled by vicious fighting. The carcasses of tanks and armored vehicles litter the rolling farm fields. Whole villages have been simply wiped out, with piles of brick and charred wood where houses once stood.

While the war is not far from people’s minds, most in the village are preoccupied with more quotidian concerns like renewing drug prescriptions and dealing with their hypertension and diabetes.

— Michael Schwirtz and Lynsey Addario

The mayor of Kherson isn’t giving up, even as Russia shells her city relentlessly.

KHERSON, Ukraine — The little green van sped down the road, the Russian forces just across the river. Inside, Halyna Luhova, the mayor of Kherson, cradled a helmet in her lap and gazed out of the bulletproof window.

When the first shell ripped open, directly in the path of the van, maybe 200 yards ahead, her driver locked his elbows and tightened his grip on the wheel and drove straight through the cloud of fresh black smoke.

“Oh my god,” Ms. Luhova said, as we raced with her through the city. “They’re hunting me.”

The second shell landed even closer.

She’s been almost killed six times. She sleeps on a cot in a hallway. She makes $375 a month, and her city in southern Ukraine has become one of the war’s most pummeled places, fired on by Russian artillery nearly every hour.

But Ms. Luhova, the only female mayor of a major city in Ukraine, remains determined to project a sense of normality even though Kherson is anything but normal. She holds regular meetings — in underground bunkers. She excoriates department heads — for taking too long to set up bomb shelters. She circulates in neighborhoods and chit-chats with residents — whose lives have been torn apart by explosions.

Kherson, a port city on the Dnipro River, was captured by Russian forces in March; retaken by Ukrainian forces in November ; and now, three months later, lies nearly deserted. Packs of out-of-school children roam the empty boulevards lined with leafless trees and centuries-old buildings cracked in half.

Russia continued to shell the city over the weekend, with projectiles striking a cinema and concert hall, warehouse facilities, houses and an area near the regional administration building, the local authorities said on Monday. Three civilians were killed over the past day, the regional administration said in a statement on the Telegram messaging app.

Ms. Luhova sees her job defined by basic verbs: bury, clean, fix and feed. Of the 10 percent or so of Kherson’s original population of 330,000 who remain, many are too old, too poor, too stubborn or too strung out to flee.

— Jeffrey Gettleman and Ivor Prickett

Russia's firing new, long-range Kh-69 cruise missiles, war experts say, piling on the misery for Ukraine's dwindling air defense

• Russian forces have deployed a new cruise missile, the Institute for the Study of War said.
• The Kh-69 was used in an attack on a major power station near Kyiv this week.
• The Kh-69 is a leap forward in Russian tactical munitions.

Russian Forces are deploying a new, long-range cruise missile, known as the Kh-69, as it steps up attacks on Ukraine's energy infrastructure.

The Washington DC-based think tank, the Institute for the Study of War (ISW), noted in its Friday report that the new air-to-surface missiles were part of Russia's "continued efforts to improve strike packages and penetrate Ukraine's degraded air defense."

Russia has renewed its attacks against Ukraine's energy infrastructure in recent weeks, exploiting Kyiv's dwindling air defense systems.

"We need air defense systems and other defense assistance, not just turning a blind eye and having lengthy discussions," President Volodymyr Zelenskyy said in a post on X.

The post was in response to a Russian missile attack overnight on April 11 that destroyed the Trypillia Thermal Power Plant. The plant is one of the primary energy suppliers to Ukraine's capital, Kyiv. The plant was hit by the new Kh-69 missiles, according to the Ukrainian military.

"ISW has not previously observed the Russian use of Kh-69 missiles in Ukraine," it said.

"Russian forces have reportedly launched Kh-69 missiles from 400 kilometers away from their targets, exceeding a previous estimated range of 300 kilometers and the 200-kilometer range of the most recent Kh-59MK2 variant," wrote the ISW.

Illia Yevlash, a spokesperson for Ukraine's Air Force, confirmed on Friday that Russia had launched the new missiles during its massive aerial assault on Thursday.

"This is an improved system of the Kh-59 version," Yevlash said.

"We are currently establishing what kind of missile it was, what type it was. These are fresh missiles with parts manufactured in 2023. That is, we can see that Russia is constantly trying to produce new missiles."

Yevlash said Russia was manufacturing the Kh-69 domestically, but that continued production relied on the ability to source key components from abroad. ISW analysts noted that while the Russian stockpiles and production capability of these Kh-69 missiles are unclear, "Russia is unlikely to be able to produce them at a significantly greater speed or quantity than its other domestically produced missiles."

The Kh-69 is Russia's latest cruise missile

Reports that Russia was employing the Kh-69 first appeared on Ukrainian Telegram channels in early February.

On February 7, a Ukrainian military blogger posted a photo on Telegram purporting to show the destroyed rear fins of a Kh-69. A Ukrainian war monitor account, which tracks Russian aviation activity, claimed that three Kh-69s were fired at Ukraine overnight on February 7-8.

In September last year, the UK-based International Institute for Strategic Studies (IISS) think tank reported that the Kh-69 was still undergoing testing. It described the missile as an "air-launched land-attack cruise missile likely akin to the European Storm Shadow or Taurus KEPD 350 missiles."

According to The War Zone, the Kh-69 was developed by Raduga, part of Russia's Tactical Missile Corporation. The missile weighs around 1,700 pounds, has an operating speed of up to 621 miles per hour, and has the option of either a penetration or a cluster warhead weighing up to 680 pounds. The missile's shape offers some degree of reduced radar signature.

Russian forces can launch the missiles from Su-34 and Su-35 tactical aircraft rather than solely from strategic bombers.

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10 cruise missiles launched at Russian shipyard, Moscow military blogger says

From Tim Lister and Olga Voitovych

A prominent Russian military blogger says that the attack on the Sevastopol shipyard overnight was carried out by the Ukrainian Air Force, which launched 10 Storm Shadow cruise missiles at the facility. 

The blogger, Rybar, said that the missiles were launched from Su-24M aircraft over the Black Sea. Rybar said air defenses, including a Pantsir-S1, had brought down seven missiles, but added that “unfortunately, three Storm Shadow missiles reached their target: the landing ship Minsk and the submarine Rostov-on-Don, which were in dry dock, received varying degrees of damage.”

The Rostov-on-Don is a relatively modern Kilo-class submarine capable of carrying Kalibr cruise missiles. There is no independent confirmation of the extent of damage done to any vessel.

“After a long break, cruise missile attacks on Crimea have resumed,” Rybar said. “With a very high degree of probability, raids will continue in the coming days (and not only in Sevastopol).”

What Ukraine is saying: In an apparent reference to the overnight attack, the head of the Ukrainian President’s Office, Andriy Yermak, said that “in addition to sanctions pressure and depriving the Russian military-industrial complex of the ability to produce weapons, we need to deprive the Russian army of logistics. Without it, they will not be able to hold our territory.” 

“The way to victory on the battlefield is to knock out the logistics of the Russians.”

Fire has been extinguished: The attack damaged eight houses and caused a fire at the shipyard which has now been extinguides, the official Russian news agency TASS reported.

What you need to know about the Putin-Kim meeting

From CNN staff

North Korea’s leader  Kim Jong Un has met with Russian President Vladimir Putin, in a closely watched summit that the West has warned could result in an arms deal to bolster Putin’s invasion of Ukraine.

A state dinner held in Kim's honor has just begun, after initial talks and a tour of an eastern Russian spaceport.

Here’s what we know so far about the summit:

• Putin hints at helping Kim: The Russian President signaled willingness to assist North Korea in developing its space and satellite program Wednesday, as he gave Kim Jong Un a tour of Russia’s vast Vostochny space launch site ahead of their  expected arms talks . When asked by a reporter whether Russia would help North Korea launch its own satellites and rockets, Putin responded: “That’s exactly why we came here.”
• Kim heaps praise on Russia: Initial talks between the duo lasted just over an hour, and focused on “economic cooperation, humanitarian issues, and the situation in the region,” Putin said. Kim said   the two countries have “many issues” that they can cooperate on. He praised Russia for having “stood up against the hegemonic forces” to defend its sovereignty and security – a veiled reference to the US and the West – and said he has expressed “the full and unconditional support to all that Russia does in response.”
• US arms warning: The US government  said last week  that arms negotiations between Russia and North Korea are “actively advancing,” and further talks could take place as part of Russia’s efforts to find new suppliers for weapons to use in its war against Ukraine. Pyongyang could meanwhile seek access to weapons it has been banned from having by United Nations sanctions, especially for its nuclear-capable ballistic missile program.
• Deepening ties: Former US National Security Adviser John Bolton warned Tuesday that the meeting between Vladimir Putin and Kim Jong Un is "quite significant," and "goes well beyond” a potential arms deal. "From North Korea's point of view, this gets them back into really significant contact with Russia for the first time since the collapse of the Soviet Union," Bolton told CNN.
• North Korea fires missiles: Hours before the summit, North Korea launched two short-range ballistic missiles from the Sunan area — a rare move when Kim is out of the country. Analysts say Pyongyang may be trying to demonstrate its military readiness and capabilities. South Korea’s Joint Chiefs of Staff (JCS) called the launches “a significant provocative act.”

Russian state dinner for Kim Jong Un begins

Russia's state dinner for North Korean leader Kim Jong Un has begun. 

The event is being held at the Vostochny Cosmodrome, according to the menu released by Russian state news. 

Russian President Vladimir Putin began the reception, saying "Your current visit is taking place in a truly comradely, friendly, benevolent atmosphere."

Putin shows Kim presidential limo during Russian spaceport visit

From CNN’s Jake Kwon and Anna Chernova

Russian President Vladimir Putin showed North Korean leader Kim Jong Un a presidential limousine manufactured by the Russian luxury automobile maker Aurus while visiting the Vostochny Cosmodrome on Wednesday.

Putin told Kim: "The car is called Aurus, this is what we started producing in Russia," according to video released by state news Russia 1 and the Russian state military TV channel Zvezda.

Aurus Motors was founded in 2018, originally to produce Russia's official state cars, according to Russian media. According to the company's website, the Aurus Senat Limousine is the official presidential vehicle and offers "ballistic protection."

It's unknown whether Kim was shown the vehicle before or after talks with Putin. 

Former US President Donald Trump also gave North Korean leader a viewing of the presidential Cadillac limousine nicknamed “the Beast” during their talks in Singapore in 2018.

During his opening remarks after Kim's arrival, Putin told the North Korean leader: "We, of course, need to talk about issues of economic cooperation, issues of a humanitarian nature, and the situation in the region," according to a Kremlin readout.

Russia to hold state dinner for Kim Jong Un featuring duck, crab and marbled beef

From CNN's Anna Chernova and Alex Stambaugh 

Russia will host a lavish official state dinner on Wednesday in honor of North Korean leader Kim Jong Un's visit, according to Russian state news agency TASS. 

The dinner comes after Kim held talks for more than an hour with President Vladimir Putin and Kim at the Vostochny Cosmodrome in Russia's Amur province, in the Far East region.

The menu, shared by state news agency Russia 1, features dishes including:

• Duck salad with figs and nectarines
• Dumplings with Kamchatka crab
• Grass carp fish soup
• Sea buckthorn sorbet
• Sturgeon with mushrooms and potatoes
• Marbled beef entrecote with baked vegetables
• Taiga lingonberries with pine nuts and condensed milk

This is the second state dinner Russia has held for Kim; a state reception was held in his honor during Kim's 2019 visit to Vladivostok.

Ukraine launches extensive missile attack on Sevastopol shipyard, with fire breaking out and 24 injured

From CNN's Tim Lister, Josh Pennington and Olga Voitovych

Ukrainian forces launched an extensive attack on a ship repair facility in the Crimean port of Sevastopol overnight, according to both the Russian Defense Ministry and Ukrainian accounts.

The Russian Defense Ministry said that the Ukrainian armed forces “launched a strike with 10 cruise missiles against the S. Ordzhonikidze ship repair plant in the city of Sevastopol.” It added that Ukraine “sent three uncrewed boats at a detachment of Black Sea Fleet ships on a sea crossing.”

It claimed that air defense forces shot down seven cruise missiles, and a patrol ship destroyed all the uncrewed boats — but acknowledged that “two ships under repair were damaged by enemy cruise missiles.”

Fire breaks out: The Russian-appointed governor of Sevastopol, Mikhail Razvozhaev, also confirmed a substantial attack in messages overnight, saying missile strikes caused a fire.

He said 24 people were injured, with four in "moderate condition."

Videos and images purportedly from the area, some posted by Razvozhaev, show a large plume of smoke and a fire raging. 

One unofficial Russian military blogger also said that two ships were damaged: a diesel-electric submarine, Rostov-on-Don, and the large landing ship Minsk, which caught fire. Both vessels were undergoing repairs in dry docks.

It’s not possible to independently verify the account. Another unofficial account claimed that Ukraine had used British-made Storm Shadow missiles.

Ukrainian message: The commander of Ukraine’s air force, Lieutenant General Mykola Oleshchuk, thanked the Ukrainian Air Force pilots "for their excellent combat work" on Wednesday, adding that "the occupiers are still recovering from the night-time bombardment in Sevastopol."

The attack appears to have been the most ambitious yet launched on the port by Ukrainian forces. There have been previous drone attacks on Sevastopol, as well as attempts to penetrate the harbor with maritime drones.  

Kremlin says Kim and Putin will not sign documents, but may discuss "sensitive areas, such as military interaction"

From CNN's Anna Chernova and Alex Stambaugh

Kremlin spokesperson Dmitry Peskov told reporters there are no plans for Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un to sign documents regarding their Wednesday meeting at the Russian space center, according to state media.

The two leaders met and held closed-door talks for more than an hour at the Vostochny Cosmodrome, Russia's space rocket launch site, in Amur province in the Far East region.

When asked about reports of arms talks between the two, Peskov said "the full range of relations [between the two countries] implies dialogue and interaction in sensitive areas, such as military interaction," according to state-run outlet Russia 1.

"All other issues concern only our two sovereign countries," he added. "And they should not be a subject of concern to any third state. Our cooperation is carried out for the benefit of the peoples of our two countries, but not against anyone."

"North Korea is our close neighbor. And despite any comments from the outside, we will build relationships with our neighbors in a way that is beneficial to us and our neighbors."

7 people injured in Russian drone attack on Ukraine's Odesa and Sumy regions

From CNN's Olga Voitovych

Seven people were injured in a Russian drone attack on the Ukrainian regions of Odesa and Sumy, the head of Odesa region military administration Oleh Kiper said on Wednesday morning.

“A total of seven civilians were injured as a result of Russian attack drones at the Izmail district. Six people in Reni and one in Izmail,” Kiper wrote on Telegram. “Two men from Reni are in serious condition, in the intensive care unit, today they will be transported to Odesa.”

He added that four others are in a “moderate condition” and will be treated in the city of Reni.

Drones struck down: The Ukrainian Air Force said out of a total of 44 Shahed-136/131 drones launched towards Ukraine, 32 were destroyed. The Air Force said the attacks were launched from the Russian town Primorsko-Akhtarsk and Kursk and Chauda in Russian-occupied Crimea.

“Fighter aircraft, anti-aircraft missile units, mobile fire groups of the Air Force and the Defense Forces of Ukraine were involved in repelling the attack,” the Ukrainian Air Force said.

Talks between Putin and Kim have ended: Russian state media

From CNN's Anna Chernova

Talks between Russian President Vladimir Putin and North Korean leader Kim Jong Un have ended on Wednesday after more than an hour, according to state media Russia 1.

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Russia fires 30 cruise missiles at Ukrainian targets; Ukraine says 29 were shot down

Kremlin-installed authorities in Crimea said eight train cars had derailed on Thursday due to an explosion. Russian state media reported the train was carrying grain. (May 18)

In this photo provided by the Ukrainian Police Press Office, fragments of a Russian rocket which was shot down by Ukraine’s air defence system are seen after the night rocket attack in the Kyiv region, Ukraine, Thursday, May 18, 2023. (Ukrainian Police Press Office via AP)

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In this photo released by Russian Defense Ministry Press Service on Thursday, May 18, 2023, Russian soldiers prepare a 152 mm self-propelled gun Giatsint-S to fire toward Ukrainian position at an undisclosed location. (Russian Defense Ministry Press Service via AP)

Emergency workers load a body of a local resident, who was killed during a rocket attack, into a car in the village of Tsyrkuny, Kharkiv region, Ukraine, Thursday, May 18, 2023. (Andrii Marienko)

A damaged private house and car are seen in the village of Tsyrkuny, Kharkiv region, Ukraine, Thursday, May 18, 2023. (Andrii Marienko)

Investigators stand at derailed train cars carrying grain next to the railroad track, Crimea, Thursday, May 18, 2023. Quoting a source within the emergency services, state news agency RIA Novosti said that the incident occurred not far from the city of Simferopol. The Crimean Railway reported that the derailment was caused by “the interference of unauthorized persons” and that there were no casualties. (AP Photo)

Derailed train cars carrying grain are seen next to the railroad track, Crimea, Thursday, May 18, 2023. Quoting a source within the emergency services, state news agency RIA Novosti said that the incident occurred not far from the city of Simferopol. The Crimean Railway reported that the derailment was caused by “the interference of unauthorized persons” and that there were no casualties. (AP Photo)

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Russia fired 30 cruise missiles against different parts of Ukraine early Thursday in the latest nighttime test of Ukrainian air defenses, which shot down 29 of them, officials said.

One person was killed and two were wounded by a Russian missile that got through and struck an industrial building in the southern region of Odesa, according to Serhiy Bratchuk, a spokesperson for the region’s military administration.

Amid the recently intensified Russian air assaults, China said its special envoy met with Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelenskyy during talks in Kyiv earlier this week with Ukraine’s chief diplomat.

Beijing’s peace proposal has so far yielded no apparent breakthrough in the war . Chinese Foreign Ministry spokesperson Wang Wenbin said Thursday that the warring parties needed to “accumulate mutual trust” for progress to be made.

Ukrainian officials sought during the talks to recruit China’s support for Kyiv’s own peace plan, according to Ukraine’s presidential office. Zelenskyy’s proposal includes the restoration of his country’s territorial integrity, the withdrawal of Russian forces and holding Russian President Vladimir Putin legally accountable for the invasion in February 2022.

Leaders of the Group of Seven leading industrialized nations gathering in Japan on Thursday were expected to denounce Russia’s war and vow to keep helping Ukraine fight Moscow. They were to hold “discussions about the battlefield” in Ukraine, according to Jake Sullivan, the White House national security adviser.

A Western official said Russia had built “potentially formidable” defensive lines on Ukrainian territory, including extensive minefields, and had more than 200,000 troops along the 1,000-kilometer (600-mile) front line, though it is unlikely to possess credible reserves.

As Ukraine receives sophisticated weapons systems from its Western allies, the Kremlin has started losing warplanes in areas previously deemed as safe, the official said, while Kyiv has proven able to shoot down Russia’s hypersonic ballistic missiles — the most advanced weapons in Moscow’s arsenal.

The official spoke on condition of anonymity to discuss military intelligence.

Meanwhile, Kremlin-installed authorities in occupied Crimea reported the derailment of eight train cars Thursday because of an explosion, prompting renewed suspicions about possible Ukrainian saboteur activity behind Russian lines. Russian state media reported that the train was carrying grain.

The state news agency RIA Novosti, quoting a source within the emergency services, said the incident occurred not far from the city of Simferopol. The Crimean Railway company said the derailment was caused by “the interference of unauthorized persons” and that there were no casualties.

Ukraine officials refuse to comment on possible acts of sabotage. Ukraine’s military intelligence spokesperson, Andriy Yusov, noted on Ukrainian television that Russian train lines “are also used to transport weapons, ammunition, armored vehicles.”

Overnight, loud explosions were heard in Kyiv as the Kremlin’s forces targeted the capital for the ninth time this month. It was a clear escalation after weeks of lull and before a much-anticipated Ukrainian counteroffensive using newly supplied advanced Western weapons.

Debris fell on two Kyiv districts, starting a fire at a garage complex. There was no immediate word about any victims, Serhii Popko, head of the Kyiv military administration, said in a Telegram post.

Ukraine also shot down two Russian exploding drones and two reconnaissance drones, according to the authorities.

The missiles were launched from Russian sea, air and ground bases, General Valerii Zaluzhnyi, the Ukrainian commander in chief, wrote on Telegram.

Several waves of missiles were aimed at areas of Ukraine between 9 p.m. Wednesday and 5:30 a.m. Thursday, he said.

Russian forces used strategic bombers from the Caspian region and apparently fired X-101 and X-55-type missiles developed during Soviet times, Kyiv authorities said. Russia then deployed reconnaissance drones over the capital.

In the last major air attack on Kyiv, on Tuesday, Ukrainian air defenses bolstered by sophisticated Western-supplied systems shot down all the incoming missiles, officials said.

That attack used hypersonic missiles, which repeatedly have been touted by Putin as providing a key strategic advantage. The missiles, which are among the most advanced weapons in Russia’s arsenal, are difficult to detect and intercept because of their hypersonic speed and maneuverability.

But sophisticated Western air defense systems, including American-made Patriot missiles, have helped spare Kyiv from the kind of destruction witnessed along the main front line in the country’s east and south.

While the ground fighting is largely deadlocked along that front line, both sides are targeting each other’s territory with long-range weapons.

The most intense fighting has focused on the battle for the city of Bakhmut and the surrounding area, in Ukraine’s eastern Donetsk province, with a Ukrainian military official claiming Thursday that the army advanced up to 1.7 kilometers (more than a mile) there over the previous day.

At the same time, Yevgeny Prigozhin, the millionaire owner of Russia’s private military contractor Wagner whose troops have spearheaded the battle, claimed that Russian army units had retreated from their positions north of the city. Prigozhin is a frequent critic of the Russian military.

At least seven Ukrainian civilians were killed, including a 5-year-old boy, and 18 people were wounded over the previous 24 hours, the presidential office said.

Also, two people were wounded in a drone attack in Russia’s southern Kursk region, which borders Ukraine, the regional governor reported Thursday.

In a Telegram post, Roman Starovoit claimed Ukrainian forces dropped an explosive device from a drone on a sports and recreation complex.

In Russia’s Belgorod region, two people were killed in Ukrainian shelling of the village of Nizhnee Berezovo, about 10 kilometers (six miles) from the border, according to Gov. Vyacheslav Gladkov.

Jill Lawless in London and Yuras Karmanau in Tallinn, Estonia contributed to this report.

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

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European nations with Patriot missiles hesitate to give the air defense systems to Ukraine

BRUSSELS — European Union countries possessing Patriot air defense systems gave no clear signal on Monday whether they might be willing to supply them to Ukraine, which is desperately seeking at least seven of the missile batteries to help fend off Russian air attacks.

Russia’s air force is vastly more powerful than Ukraine’s, but sophisticated missile systems provided by Kyiv’s Western allies can threaten Kremlin’s forces as they slowly push forward along the roughly 600-mile front line in the war.

Only Germany has come forward with a single Patriot missile battery in answer to Ukraine's latest request.

At a meeting of EU foreign and defense ministers, Dutch Foreign Minister Hanke Bruins Slot said the Netherlands is “looking at every kind of possibility at the moment” and is offering financial support to a German initiative to help Ukraine bolster its air defenses and to buy more drones.

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Asked why the Netherlands is reluctant to send some of its Patriot systems, Slot said: “We are looking again if we can deplete our store of what we still have, but that will be difficult.”

Last week, NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg said that the military organization “has mapped out existing capabilities across the alliance and there are systems that can be made available to Ukraine.” He did not name the countries that possess Patriots.

The Patriot system, made by Raytheon Technologies, is a guided missile system that can target aircraft, cruise missiles, and shorter-range ballistic missiles. Each battery consists of a truck-mounted launching system with eight launchers that can hold up to four missile interceptors each, a ground radar, a control station, and a generator.

A key advantage of the US-made systems, apart from their effectiveness, is that Ukrainian troops are already trained to use them.

But Patriots take a long time to make — as long as two years, some estimates suggest — so countries are reluctant to give them up and leave themselves exposed. Germany had 12, but it is now supplying three to Ukraine. Poland, which borders Ukraine, has two and needs them for its own defenses.

Asked whether his country would provide any, Swedish Defense Minister Pål Jonson said: “I don’t exclude that possibility, but right now we’re focused on financial contributions.” He said Sweden would send other systems that could “relieve some of the pressure” on the need for Patriots.

Jonson also noted that more US deliveries of air defense systems might come after the US House of Representatives passed a package over the weekend of $61 billion in support, including $13.8 billion for Ukraine to buy weapons.

President Biden told Ukrainian President Volodymyr Zelensky on Monday the United States will send air defense weaponry once the Senate approves the aid package.

Zelensky said in a posting on X that Biden also assured him that a coming package of aid would also include long-range and artillery capabilities.

In a separate development at Monday's meeting, Lithuanian Foreign Minister Gabrielius Landsbergis expressed concern about possible Russian sabotage against facilities in Europe being used to train Ukrainian troops.

Two German-Russian men were arrested in Germany last week on suspicion of espionage, one of them accused of agreeing to carry out attacks on potential targets, including US military facilities, prosecutors said.

“We are witnessing very similar events in our region, not just in Lithuania but also in Latvia and Estonia as well,” Landsbergis told reporters.

“There seems to be a coordinated action against the European countries that is coming from Russia,” he said. “We have to find a way to deal with the threat … because Russia is fighting not just against Ukraine but the West as well.”

Ukraine Claims It Shot Down a Russian Strategic Bomber as Moscow's Missiles Kill 8 Ukrainians

Ukraine’s air force is claiming it shot down a Russian strategic bomber

Ukraine Claims It Shot Down a Russian Strategic Bomber as Moscow's Missiles Kill 8 Ukrainians

Andriy Andriyenko

Ukrainian servicemen pass the scene of a building damaged by Russian attack in Dnipro, Ukraine, Friday, April 19, 2024. (AP Photo/Andriy Andriyenko)

KYIV, Ukraine (AP) — Ukraine’s air force claimed Friday it shot down a Russian strategic bomber, but Moscow officials said the plane crashed in a sparsely populated area due to a malfunction after a combat mission.

Neither claim could be independently verified. Previous Ukrainian claims of shooting down Russian warplanes during their more than two-year war have met with silence or denials from Moscow.

Meanwhile, Russian missiles struck cities in the central Dnipro region of Ukraine, killing eight people, including a 14-year-old girl and 8-year-old boy, and injuring 28, local officials said.

Ukraine President Volodymyr Zelenskyy repeated Kyiv officials’ almost daily appeals for more Western air defense systems , again drawing a parallel with how Israel blunted a recent Iranian attack .

Missile and drone attacks can be thwarted, he wrote on social platform X: “This has been demonstrated in the skies over the Middle East, and it should also work in Europe."

Foreign Minister Dmytro Kuleba added: “Children must not be killed in airstrikes in modern Europe.”

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Russia’s air force is vastly more powerful than Ukraine’s, but sophisticated missile systems provided by Kyiv’s Western partners are a major threat to Russian aviation as the Kremlin’s forces slowly push forward along the around 1,000-kilometer (620-mile) front line in what has become a grinding war of attrition. Ukrainian officials say they expect a major Russian offensive in the summer.

Ukraine said the air force and military intelligence cooperated to bring down the Tu-22M3 bomber with anti-aircraft missiles. Russia commonly uses the bomber to fire Kh-22 cruise missiles at Ukrainian targets from inside its own airspace. The plane can also carry nuclear warheads.

The Russian defense ministry said the warplane crashed “in a deserted area” in the southern region of Stavropol, hundreds of kilometers (miles) from the Ukrainian border.

Three crew members were rescued after ejecting from the aircraft, and the search for a fourth is taking place, according to the ministry. But Stavropol Gov. Vladimir Vladimirov said one of the rescued pilots died.

On Christmas Eve, Ukraine claimed to have shot down two Russian fighter jets . In January, the Ukrainian air force said it shot down a Russian early warning and control plane and a key command center aircraft that relays information to troops on the ground, in what appeared to be a significant blow for the Kremlin’s forces. The next month, Ukraine said it knocked out another early warning and control plane.

Also in January, Moscow accused Kyiv of shooting down a Russian military transport plane that was carrying Ukrainian POWs who were headed for a prisoner swap.

Russian forces overnight conducted a combined aerial attack with the use of 22 missiles of various types and 14 Shahed drones during the night, the Ukrainian air force said. All the drones and 15 of the missiles were intercepted, it said.

The attack hit urban areas as well as train infrastructure in the Dnipro region, Ukraine’s National Railway Operator said. Among those killed in the strikes was employee Oksana Storozhenko, the mother of two teenage sons, it said.

Follow AP’s coverage of the war in Ukraine at https://apnews.com/hub/russia-ukraine

Copyright 2024 The  Associated Press . All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

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