Extract from ABC News
Russia unleashed multiple waves of air strikes on Kyiv overnight in what officials said appeared to be the largest drone attack on the city since the start of the war, as the Ukrainian capital prepared to celebrate the anniversary of its founding on Sunday.
Key points:
- Several districts of Kyiv were struck in the overnight attacks
- Kyiv is preparing to celebrate its official founding 1,541 years ago
- Vladimir Putin has ordered stronger border control to enable more rapid movement into Ukrainian regions now under Moscow's control
Ukraine's Air Force said it downed 52 out of the 54 Russia-launched drones, calling it a record attack with the Iranian-made 'kamikaze' drones, in what also appeared to be the first deadly attack on Kyiv in May and the 14th assault since the start of the month.
Russia had targeted military and critical infrastructure facilities in the central regions of Ukraine, and the Kyiv region in particular, according to Ukraine's Air Force.
It was not immediately clear how many of the drones were shot over Kyiv.
Falling debris killed a 41-year-old man and injured a 35-year-old woman in the city, Kyiv Mayor Vitali Klitschko said.
The pre-dawn attacks came on the last Sunday of May when the capital celebrates Kyiv Day, the anniversary of its official founding 1,541 years ago.
The day has been typically marked by street fairs, live concerts and special museum exhibitions — plans for which have been made this year too, but on a smaller scale.
"The history of Ukraine is a long-standing irritant for the insecure Russians," Andriy Yermak, the head of President Volodymyr Zelenskyy's office, said on his Telegram channel.
Preliminary information indicated the air raid was the largest drone attack on Kyiv since the start of Russia's invasion in February 2022, Serhiy Popko, the head of Kyiv's military administration said.
Russia used the Iranian-made Shahed drones in the attack, he added.
"Today, the enemy decided to 'congratulate' the people of Kyiv on Kyiv Day with the help of their deadly UAVs (unmanned aerial vehicles)," Mr Popko said on the Telegram messaging app.
"The attack was carried out in several waves, and the air alert lasted more than five hours."
Several districts of Kyiv, by far the largest Ukrainian city with a population of around 3 million, suffered in the overnight attacks, officials said, including the historical Pecherskyi neighbourhood.
Reuters witnesses said that during the air raid alerts that started soon after midnight, many people stood on their balconies, some screaming offensives directed at Russia's President Vladimir Putin and "Glory to air defence" slogans.
With a Ukrainian counteroffensive looming 15 months into the war, Moscow has intensified missile and drone strikes this month after a lull of nearly two months, targeting military facilities and supplies.
Waves of attacks now come several times a week.
In the leafy Holosiivskyi district in the south-western part of Kyiv, falling debris set a three-storey warehouse on fire, destroying about 1,000 square metres of building structures, Mr Klitschko said.
A fire broke out after falling drone debris hit a seven-storey non-residential building in the Solomyanskyi district west of the city.
The district is a busy rail and air transport hub.
In the Pecherskyi district, a fire broke out on the roof of a nine-storey building due to falling drone debris, Kyiv's military administration officials said on Telegram.
Putin orders stronger border security
Mr Putin on Sunday ordered stronger border security to ensure "fast" Russian military and civilian movement into Ukrainian regions now under Moscow's control.
Speaking in a congratulatory message to the border service, a branch of Russia's Federal Security Service (FSB), on their Border Guard Day holiday, Mr Putin said their task was to "reliably cover" the lines in the vicinity of the combat zone.
Attacks inside Russia have been growing in intensity in recent weeks, chiefly with drone strikes on regions along the border but increasingly also deep into the country, including on an oil pipeline north-west of Moscow on Saturday.
"It is necessary to ensure the fast movement of both military and civilian vehicles and cargo, including food, humanitarian aid building materials sent to the new subjects of the [Russian] Federation," Mr Putin said in a message posted on the Kremlin's Telegram messaging channel.
Kherson, Zaporizhzhia, Luhansk and Donetsk are the four regions in Ukraine Mr Putin proclaimed annexed last September following what Kyiv said were sham referendums.
Russian forces only partly control the four regions.
On Saturday, officials said three people were injured in Ukrainian shelling in Belgorod, a region that was the target of pro-Ukrainian fighters this week that sparked doubts about Russia's defence and military capabilities.
The Kursk and Belgorod Russian regions bordering Ukraine have been the most frequent target of attacks that have damaged power, rail and military infrastructure, with local officials blaming Ukraine.
Kyiv almost never publicly claims responsibility for attacks inside Russia and on Russian-controlled territory in Ukraine, but said that destroying infrastructure was preparation for its planned ground assault.
South Africa to investigate allegations of arms shipment to Russia
South Africa's President Cyril Ramaphosa has appointed a panel to investigate US allegations that a Russian ship collected weapons from a naval base near Cape Town last year.
The US ambassador to South Africa, Reuben Brigety, said on May 11 that he was confident that a Russian ship, which docked at a naval base in Simonstown in the Western Cape in December last year, took aboard weapons from South Africa.
South Africa has since denied the claim.
The allegations have caused a diplomatic row between the US, South Africa and Russia and called into question South Africa's non-aligned position on the Ukraine conflict.
South Africa said it was impartial and has abstained from voting on UN resolutions on the war.
"The president decided to establish the enquiry because of the seriousness of the allegations, the extent of public interest and the impact of this matter on South Africa's international relations," the presidency said in a statement on Sunday.
The three-member panel will be chaired by Phineas Mojapelo, former deputy judge president of Gauteng province.
The other two members are Advocate Leah Gcabashe, who was former evidence leader for a state corruption inquiry that ended last year, and Enver Surty, former deputy minister of basic education.
It has six weeks to investigate.
The panel will look at who was aware of the cargo ship's arrival, the contents that were loaded and off-loaded and "whether constitutional, legal or other obligations were complied with in relation to the cargo ship's arrival".
The president is expected to receive a final report within two weeks of the investigation concluding.
Ukraine claims Russia is plotting 'a provocation' at nuclear plant
Ukraine's military intelligence has claimed, without offering evidence, that Russia was plotting a "large-scale provocation" at a nuclear power plant it occupies in the south-east of the country with the aim of disrupting a looming Ukrainian counteroffensive.
A statement released on Friday by the intelligence directorate of Ukraine's Defence Ministry claimed Russian forces would strike the Zaporizhzhia nuclear power plant, the biggest in Europe, and then report a radioactive leak in order to trigger an international probe that would pause the hostilities and give the Russian forces the respite they need to regroup ahead of the counteroffensive.
In order to make that happen, Russia "disrupted the rotation of personnel of the permanent monitoring mission" of the UN's International Atomic Energy Agency that was scheduled for Saturday, the statement said.
It didn't offer evidence to back up any of the claims.
The IAEA said it did not have any immediate comment on the allegations, and Russian officials did not immediately comment on the Ukrainian claims.
The White House said it was watching the situation closely and has seen no indication radioactive material has been leaked.
The claim mirrors similar statements Moscow regularly makes, alleging without evidence that Kyiv has been plotting provocations involving various dangerous weapons or substances in order to then accuse Russia of war crimes.
It comes as Moscow's military in Ukraine braces for a looming counteroffensive by Kyiv's forces, which hasn't started yet but could begin "tomorrow, the day after tomorrow or in a week", the secretary of Ukraine's National Security and Defence Council, Oleksiy Danilov, told the BBC in an interview Saturday.
The Zaporizhzhia power plant is one of the 10 biggest nuclear plants in the world.
It is located in the partially occupied Zaporizhzhia region in southeastern Ukraine.
The plant's six reactors have been shut down for months, but it still needs power and qualified staff to operate crucial cooling systems and other safety features.
Fighting near it repeatedly disrupted power supplies and has fuelled fears of a potential catastrophe like the one at Chernobyl, in northern Ukraine, where a reactor exploded in 1986 and spewed deadly radiation, contaminating a vast area in the world's worst nuclear disaster.
Reuters/ABC
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